James Garcia (Partner and Head of Department)
James is the head of our Medical Negligence and Personal Injury practice and joined the firm in 2023 from Hodge, Jones & Allen. He has undertaken medical negligence cases for over 20 years.
Throughout his career James has dealt with a very wide range of cases concerning all types of negligence claims – delayed diagnosis cases, birth injuries, anaesthetic injuries, surgical errors, GP and hospital negligence, all types of orthopaedic claims, including complex hip and knee replacement surgery claims and and all types of cancer cases.
He has pursued cases against NHS and private hospitals, General Practitioners and many disciplines of private treatment providers.
James joined Hodge Jones & Allen from Slater & Gordon Lawyers where he was head of their London clinical negligence team and oversaw the Ian Paterson and De Puy ASR group actions.
James has dedicated himself to assisting those who have been injured in medical accidents of all types. He takes great pride in adopting a mature, common sense approach to his work and recognises the stress of litigation upon all those involved in the process. His aim is always to try to quickly obtain a liability decision which can then allow interim payments to be made, to assist an injured person back to work, help secure more suitable accommodation or aids and equipment. He has a large number of contacts with good expert witnesses with whom he has worked for many years.
RECENT CASES
- Brain injury suffered at birth – as a result of a delay in performing a caesarean section upon his mother. The Claimant received a substantial lump sum and annual payments for life, which, on a capitalised basis, are equivalent to an award of just under £21 million. This is one the largest ever awarded in the UK for this type of case.
- Cerebral palsy claim – James settled a claim for a young man who was brain damaged at birth due to his delayed delivery. The final award approved by the court was for lump sum payments of £3.3m sterling and €5m euros. Additionally the claimant will receive €355,900 (index linked) per annum to fund his care package.
- Nerve injury during routine scoliosis surgery – £290,000 awarded against a well-regarded spinal surgeon in respect of a severely debilitating spinal nerve injury caused during a routine scoliosis surgery. Following the initial surgery, two further surgeries were performed in quick succession which caused further trauma. The case was very complex on the issue of consent and causation.
- Failure to diagnose and treat Vitamin D deficiency – the Claimant was a dialysis patient whose condition was not appropriately monitored. She was awarded £400,000 in respect of bone fractures caused by a failure to treat her condition over a period of many years.