Richard Seabrook
Call:1987
Special Interest Groups:
Personal Injury
Clinical Negligence
Disease
Fraudulent Claims
Employment
Richard Seabrook was called to the Bar in 1987.
He is a specialist in personal injury, clinical negligence, disease, fraudulent claims and
employment cases.
He has been Junior Treasury Counsel to the Crown since 1994.
Personal Injury
General personal injury work has been the most significant component of his practice since
his call to the Bar.
Acting for both claimants and defendants, he has gained considerable experience of all
stages of the full range of personal injury claims, including fatal accidents, clinical negligence,
traumatic injury and occupational disease claims.
His personal injury practice has, through more than twenty years, afforded him experience of
conducting personal injury litigation from pre-issue right through to conducting appeals in the
Court of Appeal. The range of work undertaken by him includes any type of personal injury
claim litigated on the multi track.
He undertakes advisory work in respect of all aspects of liability, quantum, tactics and
evidence, conducts Conferences with relevant experts, attends interlocutory hearings and
conducts trials and appeals.
Joint settlement meetings are becoming an increasingly frequent entry in his diary. He has
also obtained significant Inquest experience in respect of deaths which are considered
potential to found claims.
Clinical Negligence
His clinical negligence work is expanding rapidly and although he presently acts
predominantly for claimants, he is keen to balance out the work he undertakes.
The litigation he has had experience of conducting include deaths and injury resulting from
inadequate medical attention, poor surgical practice, failure to administer appropriate medical
treatment and systemic failure.
He has dealt with a very wide range of areas of medical practice, including Orthopaedics,
Dentistry, Ophthalmic, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Accident & Emergency and Plastics.
He has experience of claims relating to failed hip replacement surgery, failure to diagnose
diabetic retinopathy, failed breast enlargement surgery, death resulting from failure to
recognise the progression of Hereditary Angeodema and negligently conducted
hysterectomies amongst many others.
He has also had significant experience of being involved in Inquests relating to deaths
occurring in circumstances where clinical considerations have been involved.
Disease
Occupational disease work is one aspect of personal injury work conducted by him, and he
has obtained significant experience of all aspects of this type of work since he moved to the
Ropewalk in 1996.
He was Counsel for the Defendant in the first instance and Appellate case of Holtby -v-
Brigham and Cowan (Hull) Limited and was the first to raise the issue of divisibility of injury in
relation to asbestosis.
He was also Counsel at first instance and in the Court of Appeal in the work-related stress
cases known as Hartman -v- South Essex Mental Health NHS Trust and Others.
In addition to involvement in those significant reported cases he routinely deals with cases
relating to all aspects of asbestos disease, VWF, NIHL and WRULD.
He is experienced in conducting limitation trials relating to disease injury as well as
undertaking the full hearings.
Fraudulent Claims
His initial ten years of practice, involving a significant element of Crown Court criminal work
before moving to the Ropewalk, makes him perhaps particularly well-placed to explore claims
where there may be a fraudulent concern, ranging from outright invention of an accident/injury
through to the more subtle deliberate exaggeration of legitimate heads of damage.
Cross-examination of claimants thought to be pursuing fraudulent claims is, for him, an area
of particular interest and professional reward. Whilst aware of the recognition by Courts of
chronic pain, ME, fibromyalgia, somatoform disorders and the like, he is well able to probe
into the divide between the genuine and the fraudulent.
He appeared for the Defendant in a false reflex sympathetic dystrophy claim where a claimant
who broke his thumb at work ended up confined to a wheelchair apparently unable to walk,
work or care for himself. He was exposed at the trial as a fraud and was at the conclusion of
his cross-examination forced to discontinue his claim and pay the Defendant's costs on
Judicial threat of having the matter referred to the DPP.
Employment
He started undertaking employment work in his previous Chambers, which has continued and
flourished since moving to the Ropewalk in 1996. He is regularly instructed in all manner of
employment claims within the Employment Tribunal jurisdiction including claims relating to
unfair dismissal, breach of contract of employment, all aspects of discrimination and TUPE.
He has experience of conducting claims within the Employment Tribunal, the EAT and the
Court of Appeal. His employment practice profile suggests an even split between claimant
and respondent work.
He also deals with other employment-related claims in the jurisdiction of the County Court and
High Court including restrictive covenants, restraint of trade clauses, confidential information,
wrongful dismissal and breach of contract.
He sat briefly as a part-time Employment Tribunal Judge in the Birmingham region but quickly
decided he much preferred being the advocate, so relinquishing his appointment in order to
further concentrate on developing his practice.
He is a member of the Personal Injuries Bar Association.
He is recognised as a leading junior by the Legal 500 UK Edition.
An extremely effective junior
Legal 500 UK Edition