The schedule of loss

Where it comes from

Practice Direction 16 to the Civil Procedure Rules requires a claimant to attach to the particulars of claim a schedule of details of any past and future expenses and losses claimed. In practice the first schedule is often provisional, and a fully pleaded schedule is served later under the directions order, usually with the evidence that supports it. The defendant answers with a counter-schedule, taking each head in turn.

The schedule is pleaded to a date — normally the anticipated trial date. Past losses run from the injury to that date; future losses run from that date onwards. The claimant's age at that date drives every multiplier in the document.

How it is structured

Most schedules follow the same order, whatever the size of the claim:

• Summary — one table giving each head and its total, with the grand total.
• Background — the claimant's circumstances, the injury, the medical and other expert evidence relied on, and the key assumptions: date of birth, date the schedule is pleaded to, life expectancy, retirement age, discount rate.
• General damages — pain, suffering and loss of amenity, with interest.
• Past losses (special damages) — each head itemised to the pleaded date, with interest.
• Future losses — each head expressed as an annual figure (the multiplicand) multiplied by a factor that capitalises it (the multiplier).
• Statement of truth.
• Appendices — typically the multipliers used, with the table and rate each one came from, so the other side can check them.

The heads of loss

Which heads appear depends on the injury. In a serious injury or birth injury claim the list is long; in a modest claim it may be three lines. Heads commonly pleaded:

Multiplicand and multiplier

Every future head is a product of two numbers. The multiplicand is the annual cost or loss, taken from the evidence: a salary, a care package costed at an hourly rate, a therapy programme. The multiplier converts that annual figure into a single lump sum paid today, allowing for the number of years the loss runs, the chance the claimant does not survive to receive it, and the return the lump sum will earn in the meantime.

The multiplier is where the Ogden Tables come in. They are published by the Government Actuary's Department and give, for a claimant of a given age and sex, the multiplier for a loss running for life, to a pension age, or for a fixed term, at a range of discount rates. The discount rate currently set by the Lord Chancellor for England and Wales is +0.5%, in force since 11 January 2025; Scotland and Northern Ireland are also at +0.5%. A loss that does not start at trial, runs between two ages, or recurs every few years (a wheelchair replaced every five years) needs the multiplier adjusted or split, and the explanatory notes to the Tables set out how.

How each multiplier in a schedule of loss is derived walks through this head by head.

Interest

By convention interest on general damages runs at 2% a year from service of the claim form, and interest on past losses at half the special account rate over the period from the injury to the pleaded date, on the footing that the losses accrued evenly across it. Losses that were incurred all at once, early on, may attract the full rate from the date they were incurred. No interest is claimed on future losses.

What the calculator does with it

The calculator produces the multipliers for the appendix: enter the date the schedule is pleaded to, the claimant's date of birth and sex, the discount rate and any agreed life expectancy, and it returns every Ogden multiplier the schedule needs, each with its table number and the two printed values it was interpolated between. The multiplicands, the choice of heads and the judgement calls — retirement age, reduction factors, whether to plead a lost-years claim — remain yours.

Open the calculator · Pricing