Abbott and Others v MoD – Judgment on military noise induced hearing loss

At last, after 26 years the courts have finally heard evidence and made findings on the diagnosis, assessment of disability and quantification on NIHL in military NIHL claims. 

The findings abandons the dated and aged medical literature of Coles Lutman & Buffin Guidelines “CLB 2000” which has historically been used in industrial stead state factory noise/disease cases. 

The Group Litigation Order of Abbott & Others v MoD [2026] EWHC 941 (KB) was heard at the end of last year with test cases and judgment was handed recently. 

The judge accepted the claimant's arguments that diagnosis and quantification in Military Noise Induced Hearing Loss (M-NIHL) claims would be based on the new guidelines developed by Professor Moore.

What do this mean for legal claims?

This is a significant victory for military claimants now providing some much-needed clarity.  

I hope this will finally see justice done for these injured service personnel who have dedicated their lives to King and Country, but who are persistently challenged by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on aged technical factory guidelines to diagnose NIHL in military claims.

Legal practitioners have always argued for many years that the assessment of M-NIHL claims is quite different to factory noise and that the rigid application of CLB 2000 was not relevant.

Further following the subsequent even more technical paper released in 2015, by the same authors Lutman Coles and Buffin “LCB 2015” this appeared to apply even more technical caveats in M-NIHL which were simply not relevant in the majority of M-NIHL claims against the MoD. 

This is most welcome news for serving personnel who find themselves discharged early in their career due to weapons exposure, and other excessively noise environments such as helicopters, aircraft and most notably the Ajax programme where they have no other exposure elsewhere, but their claims being denied by the MoD.

What are the key highlights?

The significant findings in respect of diagnosis, quantification and assessment of M-NIHL now completely change the landscape for the benefit of military claimants of which key highlights can be summarised as:

1. Diagnostic Method for Military NIHL: The revised Moore method  (rM NIHL) is the preferred diagnostic method. Absence of a classic 4 kHz “notch” does not exclude military NIHL.
2. Reliability of Military Audiograms: Military audiograms are admissible but not gold standard.
3. Latency and Acceleration of NIHL:  No acceptance of delayed or accelerating NIHL.
4. Tinnitus Causation: No fixed time bar, but scrutiny increases with delay.

Summary

Overall this is positive news for military Claimants with NIHL. This Group Litigation Order dealt with two test cases, one in which NIHL was established, the other not, but in that case there was an award for tinnitus linked to service, albeit modest.

CLB 2000 and LCB 2015 will no longer apply for the diagnosis in military NIHL claims and instead rM NIHL is now the governing diagnostic standard.

Although M-NIHL claims that were not tried as part of this GLO framework do not strictly apply, the judgment provides a welcome guidance and framework for M-NIHL setting aside the old CLB method of diagnosis of NIHL. 

When Claimants in the military context are exposed to excessive noise, by and large, this exposure is excessive and in breach of statutory and common law duties, often admitted by the MoD. 

What the findings in this case will do is hopefully prevent the MoD raising obstructive technical arguments to prevent justifiable and deserved compensation to service personnel who’s careers have come to an abrupt end, having been negligently injured by the MoD and have lost their service careers.

Find out more about Irwin Mitchell's expertise in supporting armed forces personnel affected by noise induced hearing loss at our dedicated hearing loss section.