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03/02/2026
Marcus Grant instructed by Christopher Dickinson of Dickinsons Solicitors represented a 37-year-old compliance manager who sustained a concussive head injury in a low-speed rear end shunting collision when a lorry ran into the back of her car at traffic lights.
She developed a classic cluster of concussive head injury symptoms including cognitive fatigue on intellectual exertion, intermittent migraine headaches and associated dizziness, photophobia and subjective cognitive slowing, especially when cognitively fatigued.
She continued to buffer these symptoms for 3½ years after the accident before going off work and bringing a seven-figure claim for her loss of earning capacity.
She obtained a DWI MRI scan from Innovision which revealed statistically abnormal reduced ‘Fractional Anisotropy’ (“FA”) to four white matter pathways of her brain, consistent with abnormalities associated with trauma.
The four white matter pathways involved were those most at risk from the mechanism of injury, namely to the ‘mid brain, fornix, and corpus callosum’, the so-called ‘cone of vulnerability’.
She presented her claim on the basis that her subjective report of cognitive and vestibular symptoms were organically mediated, caused by microscopic diffuse axonal injury (“DAI”) to the above four white matter tracts and to her left saccule in her inner ear, and consequently that the prognosis for any further significant improvement was guarded.
The Defendants rejected that claim, conceding < £45,000 in their counter-schedule, suggesting that the cluster of symptoms was better explained by an iatrogenic misinformed belief that the symptoms were attributable to irreversible brain injury when in truth they were nothing more than anxiety mediated and capable of being treated.
They attached a differential diagnosis of Functional Cognitive Disorder to explain the subjective cluster of symptoms. They explained that the reduced FA on the DWI MRI was not DAI but instead artefacts seen in patients with anxiety or migraine.
The case was gearing up for a 7/8 day trial starting on 02.02.26 with expert evidence from experts in neuroimaging, neurology, neuroradiology, neuropsychology and neuropsychiatry, together with 28 days of covert surveillance disclosed by the Defendants 2 months before trial.
24 days before trial the Defendants made two Part 36 offers, one for £1.5m and the second for £875,000. 10 days before trial, they applied to withdraw the higher offer after receiving a witness statement the Claimant had prepared on her cousin’s head injury claim in 2016.
The Claimant accepted the £1.5m Part 36 offer within the 21 days embargo period.
The Defendants’ application to withdraw the Part 36 offer was dismissed by Mrs Justice Obi on 30.01.26 on the basis that they failed to satisfy the threshold that they had discovered new evidence which put a wholly different complexion on the case.
This case is linked to the earlier reported decision of HHJ Shanks in which he permitted the Claimant to rely on a covert recording of the Defendants’ neuropsychological expert’s neuropsychological testing which the Claimant contended revealed methodological flaws in the testing.
Celikdemir v. (1) PGR Timber Limited & (2) Axa Insurance [2026] (citation awaited) & Celikdemir v. (1) PGR Timber Limited & (2) Axa Insurance [2025] EWHC 3118 (KB)
