July 20th, 2007
BANKER SUES FOR £1.5 IN COMPENSATION AFTER SLIPPING ON A “KILLER PETAL”………..
…….here we go again..!
Whenever an interesting claim for compensation is before the Courts the media, particularly the tabloids tend to get on the bandwagon and claim that “compensation culture” is rife and that the public are not prepared to accept personal responsibility. A cursory glance at the various comments placed on message boards and the like from various members of the public, reflect perhaps a more widespread notion that the UK is heading towards a US style “compensation culture”. This being despite reports from the Department of Constitutional Affairs showing that in reality the facts say quite the opposite.
It is not for the sake of saying it but lawyers will often say that there are always two sides to a story. A recent claim by a banker against a flower shop has been successful on the grounds that the owner of the flower shop had a duty of care to all those who visited the shop and its surrounding area. Because the claim was made by a person with a high level of income his potential claim is in the region of 1.5 million pounds.
It is often lost on the media that we have a fault based system. Anyone making a claim has to show that the third party is negligent and it is only when either the third party, their insurers or the Courts have considered them to be negligent that they are entitled to pay compensation.
Like many aspects of life, education and globalisation has also meant an increase in awareness of a person’s entitlement to their rights. Therefore in my opinion we should be proud of the common law countries where public awareness of their rights is so advanced that claims such as these have evolved.
It is for nothing that John Locke said that :-
“The end of law is, not to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom”.
In my opinion evolution of common law as evidenced by claims such as this is in fact enlargement of freedom as envisaged by John Locke.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 2nd, 2007
We have had nearly a 100 enquiries recently from Claimants who had contacted a well known claims management company. It is now alleged that this claims management company had created some 1,400 false personal injury claims which they have sold to unsuspecting solicitors.
Many of these claims may be genuine and yet the Claimants have been abandoned by their solicitors on the fear on the part of the solicitors that they may be implicated in this scam.
We are now instructed by a number of these Claimants who are now faced with the onerous task of showing to the Courts that their claims are genuine.
Our enquiries of these Claimants indicate that members of the public are attracted by the quick solution afforded by claims management companies and particularly the free car. Whilst on the face of it, it looks hassle free and free of costs, but in reality it never is.
Many of these Claimants are now facing a claim for hiring a car. This is because they had signed a hiring agreement with the hirer (a common practice of claims companies). As the hirer no longer has a firm of solicitors recovering these costs for them they are now looking to the victim claimants for the cost of hire.
These scenarios are classic examples of what can and will go wrong when using intermediaries. They neither have the Claimant or hirers interests in mind and are driven by greed to make as much money from what is usually a stressful event for the Claimant.
The moral of the story is there is nothing free in this world and that if you are injured the best professional to consult is your local solicitor.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
February 22nd, 2008
Do they serve public interests or harm it ?
my views are set out in my blog of August 2007.
I would be interested on comments from members of the public.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2008
We have this week settled to the satisfaction of our client the first referred claim from our referral /affilliate partner.
We sucessfully sued our client’s employers.
We practice what we preach.If you have a wrong commited against you and belive you have suffered injury and loss you should consult a personal injury lawyer rather than a middlman.Ultimately your claim needs to be handled by a specialist lawyer, so why not consult him/her immediatly.
www.lawclaim.net
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »