What are the relevant considerations to a judge when deciding whether or not to order trial by jury in a personal injury case?

Ward v. James, [1966] 1 Q.B. 273, [1965] 1 All E.R. 563, is an interesting case in which Lord Denning examines, in detail, the manner in which courts, having a discretion as to whether a case should be tried by a jury, should exercise their discretion. In the course of his excellent and long judgment he is reported at p. 571 to have said: “The cases all show that, when a statute gives a discretion, the courts must not fetter it by rigid rules from which a judge is never at liberty to depart. Nevertheless the courts can lay down the considerations which should be borne in mind in exercising the discretion and point out those considerations which should be ignored. This will normally determine the way in which the discretion is exercised and thus ensure some measure of uniformity of decision. From time to time the considerations may change as public policy changes, and so the pattern of decision may change. This is all part of the evolutionary process. We have seen it in the way that discretion is exercised in divorce cases. So also in the mode of trial. Whereas it was common to order trial by jury, now it is rare. “Relevant Considerations Today. Let it not be supposed that this court is in any way opposed to trial by jury. It has been the bulwark of our liberties too long for any of us to seek to alter it. Whenever a man is on trial for serious crime, or when in a civil case a man’s honour or integrity is at stake, or when one or other party must be deliberately lying, then trial by jury has no equal. But in personal injury cases trial by jury has given place of late to trial by judge alone, the reason being simply this, that in these cases trial by a judge alone is more acceptable to the great majority of people.” And at p. 576 to have said: “The result of it all is this. We have come in recent years to realise that the award of damages in personal injury cases is basically a conventional figure derived from experience and from awards in comparable cases. Yet the jury are not allowed to know what that conventional figure is. The judge knows it, but the jury do not. This is a most material consideration which a judge must bear in mind when deciding whether or not to order trial by jury. So important is it that the judge ought not, in a personal injury case, to order trial by jury save in exceptional circumstances. Even when the issue of liability is one fit to be tried by a jury, nevertheless he might think it fit to order that the damages be assessed by a judge alone.”