A CONSTRUCTION worker left with life-changing injuries after plunging 12 metres from a collapsed platform is seeking almost £12 million in damages in what could become one of Jersey’s largest ever personal injury claims.
Steel fixer Jose Filipe Camara de Abreu suffered multiple permanent injuries when the platform – an alternative to scaffolding installed by Brittany-based CNR Construction, which had been sub-contracted by Camerons – suddenly failed beneath him, sending him crashing to the road below, when he was working on the Ann Court development in St Helier in February 2021.
He fell around four storeys before being airlifted to Southampton General Hospital, where he spent more than a month in intensive care and underwent multiple operations. His injuries included a fractured pelvis and kidney problems, and his left leg had to be amputated.
The Royal Court later found that Mr de Abreu had repeatedly warned of gaps and missing guardrails on the platforms, but that his employer, RS Reinforcements Ltd, had ignored those concerns. Following a four-day Royal Court trial last year, liability for the accident was apportioned 80% to CNR Construction and 20% to RS Reinforcements Ltd.
The battle has now shifted to how much compensation he should receive overall, with a Royal Court judgment issued last week as part of the latest round of litigation showing that Mr de Abreu has now quantified his claim at £11.8 million as he continues to undergo treatment and rehabilitation.
Court documents setting out the value of Mr de Abreu’s compensation claim initially estimated his losses at around £2.5 million in 2024, rising to £3.3 million by December 2025. Even before the liability trial, however, documents filed with the court said that the claim was “likely to be well into eight figures”.
The latest schedule of loss includes future care costs, with almost £500,000 sought for assistive technology and a further £241,702 for wheelchair-accessible transport, alongside claims for specialist accommodation, ongoing rehabilitation, equipment and other long-term care needs.
The latest judgment followed an application made by Mr de Abreu in June to rely on evidence from eight additional experts to help decide the total sum of damages.
The court heard that expert evidence already runs to almost 1,200 pages and, if both sides are permitted to rely on all the evidence they seek, the Royal Court could ultimately hear from as many as 38 expert witnesses spanning disciplines including orthopaedics, neurology, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, prosthetics and pain management.
Before any trial takes place, the parties are due to attempt to resolve the claim through mediation later this year, the judgment said. That process, originally scheduled for the spring, has now been rearranged for October.
If no settlement can be reached, a damages trial is not expected until late 2027 or early 2028 – by which time, the presiding Master of the Royal Court David Cain pointed out, “all or some” of the expert reports may need to be updated.
In his judgment, the Master highlighted another significant hurdle hanging over the case.
Although Mr de Abreu has already succeeded on liability, Advocate Cardin went on to warn that this was not “cost-free litigation” because CNR is in a separate dispute with its insurers, who contend that their policy is capped at £5 million, including legal costs.
The Master warned that commissioning unnecessary expert reports “will not only incur a hard cost”, but those costs would “inevitably be increased by an order of magnitude” once lawyers considered them and prepared for trial – “all of which could reduce the monies available to compensate the Plaintiff,” he said.
Advocate Cadin was also critical of the way the damages claim had been advanced, noting: “The plaintiff’s failure to provide a properly pleaded schedule of loss at an early stage has created the problem he now faces… It is a problem of his own making.”
The Master added that the proceedings had followed a “somewhat meandering path” after the plaintiff obtained expert evidence before seeking the court’s permission to rely on it.
“It should not come as any surprise to those advising the plaintiff that this is not an acceptable manner of proceeding,” he said.
The ongoing civil claim follows the prosecution of CNR Construction under Jersey’s health and safety law in January 2022. The Royal Court fined the French contractor £100,000 in 2022 after finding that failures in the installation of the platform led to Mr de Abreu’s fall.
During that sentencing hearing, prosecutors told the court that Mr de Abreu said his body felt “mutilated”, his mental health had been “destroyed”, and that he had become “jobless and homeless” while facing an uncertain future after the accident.
