Romilly Cummerson

Call:1998

Introduction and Contact details

Romilly is recommended in The Legal 500 2009 as a leading junior in Personal Injury. In particular she is praised for her ability to  "adapt[] to the changing flow of evidence in court with great skill."

Romilly specialises in personal injury, clinical negligence and related insurance issues. She has developed an extensive practice acting for both claimants and defendants in all types of injury-related litigation, including professional indemnity claims arising out of the negligent handling of injury litigation.

Tel:    020 7242 2523 (switchboard)
Fax:   020 7691 1234

Email: romilly.cummerson@hardwicke.co.uk

COMMERCIAL

Romilly has built up a significant and successful professional negligence practice which focuses particularly on negligence arising out of medical malpractice and surgery. 

Professional Negligence

Romilly’s professional negligence practice focuses largely on her clinical negligence and medical malpractice work. Romilly’s knowledge and experience as a successful negligence specialist ensures she is able to deal with all aspects of such disputes.

INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE

Romilly’s clinical negligence practice area is at the heart of her practice. Additionally, her professional negligence work often requires her to advise on aspects of insurance law, from coverage issues, breaches of warranties and construction to other policy terms. She has acted in many cases involving product liability, personal injury and professional indemnity insurance.

All Risks

Romilly accepts instructions to advise or represent clients in their disputes over the proper construction of all risks policies.

BTE & ATE

Romilly accepts instructions to advise or represent clients in their disputes over the proper construction of ‘Before the Event’ and ‘After the Event’ insurance policies, as well as advising on avoidance of liability and coverage issues.

Clinical Negligence

Romilly has been involved in clinical negligence claims from her earliest days in practice. This gives her a wide experience of claims concerning all branches of the medical professions.  In the past year she has acted for claimants and defendants in cases involving allegations of negligence against GPs, general surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons, district nurses, care assistants, opticians, and opthalmologists. She has advised on a wide variety of issues, including:

• Failure to diagnose hyperparathyroidism with nephrocalcinosis, resulting in the patient’s death
• Failure to diagnose glaucoma and negligent treatment of glaucoma
• The negligent failure to assess the care needs of an elderly patient. In particular, failure to have regard to communication difficulties posed by advancing dementia
• Surgical errors including the selection of inappropriate orthopaedic surgery, negligent execution of surgery and failure to recognise and treat post-operative complications, leading to a patient’s death

Employers' Liability

Romilly has received significant recognition in this field. She has advised and successfully represented a wide range of corporate clients ranging from utility companies to local authorities and employees.

Health & Safety

This subject area naturally overlaps with her work in employer’s and occupier’s liability She is well versed in all applicable European legislation and recommendations relating to health and safety.

Medical Malpractice

Romilly has gained a wealth of experience in this area which naturally overlaps with her clinical negligence practice. She has advised and represented clients on such matters as:

• procedural errors in hospitals
• failure to prevent infection
• misdiagnosis

Occupier’s Liability

She has experience representing both those who have suffered personal injury through negligent maintenance of hospitals and those who require representation in defending such claims.

Personal Injury

Romilly has extensive knowledge of injury-related litigation.  Her expertise covers employers’ liability, public liability, product liability, fatal accident claims and motor-related claims. She provides substantive, procedural and tactical advice on liability issues and quantum, including providing early assessments of the merits of a potential claim or, if necessary, advising that an early settlement be sought. She regularly handles multi-party actions and, as well as being an experienced advocate, she is often instructed to conduct round table settlement conferences.

In the past 12 months Romilly has been involved in a number of interesting and complex cases including:

• Fatal accident claim concerning a widow separated from the deceased but reconciled with him shortly before his death.
• High value claim made by the owner of a small business unable to work due to chronic pain syndrome following a minor physical injury
• Successful application for a Limited Civil Restraint Order against a litigant –in-person
• Additional claims for contribution/indemnity in multi-party actions;
• Fatal accident claim by child of the deceased for financial dependency in excess of 75% of the deceased’s income and financial and services dependency continuing after completion of full-time education.
• Professional indemnity claims arising out of failure to issue, negligent mismanagement and under-settlement of personal injury claims.

Product Liability

Romilly has gained substantial experience in all matters relating to product liabilty as part of her personal injury practice. She also advises on coverage and policy interpretation issues in this area.

Professional Indemnity

In addition to her conventional injury practice, Romilly has a particular interest in professional indemnity claims arising out of the negligent handling of injury litigation.

Public Liability

Romilly has represented as well as opposed cases involving local authorities who have failed to discharge their statutory duties. This area naturally overlaps with her speciality in medical law.

Road Traffic

Romilly is highly experienced in all aspects of road traffic accidents and the personal injury issues arising from them.

PUBLIC LAW

Healthcare Law

She has acted both for private individuals and medical authorities in their claims, building up a large amount of satisfied clients.

Inquiries & Inquests

In association with her clinical negligence practice, Romilly has represented a variety of interested parties in inquests arising out of deaths related to clinical and nursing care. In the past 12 months she has been instructed in inquests concerning numerous complex issues including:

• Surgical negligence
• Absence of informed consent
• Product liability
• Risk assessment procedures for the adoption of new instruments/techniques within an NHS trust
• GP, nursing and practitioner negligence
• Systemic neglect in a residential care home setting

Recent Work

Lengthy inquest concerning the death on the operating table of a 5-year-old patient during the course of an elective splenectomy. The case attracted national media attention and involved issues of surgical negligence, and potential product liability in relation to the use of a mechanical morcellating device designed for gynaecological surgery but adopted for use by a paediatric surgical team.