This is the first of two linked articles in our ongoing series about the life of a typical professional indemnity (PI) claim against an engineer. These two articles will consider some of the legal arguments that engineers might have at their disposal in defending claims. Some arguments operate as "complete" defences, i.e. where they succeed the claim fails altogether. Other arguments operate only to mitigate the financial effects of a claim, reducing the value of any award of damages that the claimant might justifiably expect to recover in court. Both types of argument can ultimately be used before a judge, but more usually they feature as bargaining points between the parties in an attempt to resolve the dispute prior to any trial taking place. In this article we look briefly at complete defences.
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