Is Solicitors offer of £5K compensation fair? Trying to make a v. long story short...

[TheBeanAndTheBee]

DP was seriously injured in a road accident on a bus outside the UK 10 yrs ago. Has lost large section of his leg, was unable to walk for a year. He now is able to walk albeit with serious limp. He has already had a serious relapse, and was unable to walk, obviously we do not know if/when this may happen again, & what the future holds.

His travel insurance covered legal expenses of £30K in order to pursue a case of compensation against bus company. This money has all now been spent by UK solicitors, on what we don't quite know(!), but it turns out that the case has still not even gone to the 1st stage of court process.

We have formally complained to the solicitors in the UK, they have admitted lying about the progress of the case & that they have not behaved in a competent manner.

They originally offered compensation of £2.5K & have now doubled offer to £5K.

Does this sound like a fair & reasonable sum of compensation? To put it in perspective the claim is for around half a million. Due to their incompetence, we will have lost out on 10 yrs of having that money. Moving forward we also now have to finance the case ourselves (money we don't have) as original pot of legal cover has been spent.

We have not approached the legal ombudsman as yet, as have been trying to resolve with solicitors directly.

Does their offer sound fair? Or should we go to ombudsman? Or should we look into suing them???

Doesn't sound very much, I would take independent advice- maybe try Cab? It could be that the laws on compensation in the other country are very different to ours. The law of torte is very complex unfortunately.

Just read the original post- it is unclear exactly what happened. For example, what caused the accident? The amount of compensation directly relates to that. For example, of the driver had an accident due to ice, the amount of compensation would be a lot less than of he was drunk for example.

lost a large section of his leg. Do you mean he had it amputated?

Doesn't sound much at all if that is the case.

If the solicitor's mistake means your sons claim is prejudiced or statute barred and the person responsible for the injuries cannot be pursued, then the claim against the solicitor is for whatever would have been recovered from the at fault person.

That's not very clear is it. Say you had a whiplash injury from a car accident worth two thousand and a thousand pounds loss of earnings, and the solicitor you instructed ballsed up so you can't pursue a claim. You claim that three thousand, plus legal costs for instructing another solicitor, from the firm who ballsed up.

Yes complain to ombudsman and get another firm to do a negligence claim against the firm. It should be fairly easy to get someone to act on a no win no fee.

It's extremely difficult to comment on this in anything other than very general terms. As has been said, all countries have very different laws on the sums recoverable in PI claims, and the heads of damage - so the notional value of a claim under English law can be very different to that under say Swiss law. Countries will also have their own laws as regards the limitation period (the amount of time post-accident within which - in simple terms- you can commence your claim at court), this does vary but from memory I can't remember any country where this is much longer than 3 years. So I can't understand how 10 years on your claim is not even at the first stage.

I think you need to contact another independent firm and find out exactly what is happening with the claim and what a reasonable level of compensation is. If it turns out that the first solicitors have acted negligently and the value of the claim has been reduced as a result then you may have a separate claim against them as well. But the first step is to get some independent advice. Don't agree anything with the existing solicitors until you have done so.

The amount of money that you should expect in compensation from the solicitors for their incompetent representation should be the amount you have lost (or failed to gain) from the compensation you expected to receive. The solicitors themselves will (or jolly well should) be covered by professional negligence insurance, so you should be able to be compensated in full. I would second the advice to get advice from another firm of solicitors regarding both the compensation claim against the solicitors and in respect of the injury claim.

Thanks all for the responses, No, his leg hasn't had to be amputated. large sections of bone and tissue loss from and around the knee.

Just to be clear, the level of compensation I am asking about is not from the court in the other country, so this particular question is not about the accident.

This is with regards to the UK solicitors breach of their code of conduct. Ten years have gone by, and they have not even got the case to an initial hearing!! but have managed to spend all the available funds from the travel insurance.

We are very close to the claim being time barred, but not quite there yet. Chubfuddler if the claim can still go ahead in the other country, where do we stand, do you think?

Does the fact they have already doubled their offer mean they are running scared?

Find another solicitors and ask them to take it on as a No Win No Fee case. If you have a good case they will be more than happy to accept.

Also report them to the Law Society if they have been negligent.

If the claim isn't time barred and can still be pursued against the at fault party then I guess the claim against the crap solicitors is for all the legal costs paid to them by your legal expenses insurers and also for lost interest on the final compensation sum. If its time barred the claim is for the whole shebang.

Thank you all for responding. hatesponge in this particular country, there is a 5 year limitation, which has been extended for another 5 years. (the extension is the only thing that HAS been done). That is about to run out in a few months time.

Are there solicitors who specialize in suing other solicitors?!

Another personal injury firm, or department within a generalist firm, would do it. You need someone who understands personal injury and ideally the jurisdiction in which the original claim was going on, so they know what your solicitor should have done.

ok, and would someone like this (with this specialist knowledge) do this on a no win no fee do you think?

Definitely.

Great. Will look into that tomorrow.

Thank you from me and DP!

Might it not be better to appoint solicitors in the country where it happened & then go for the cost of that from the uk solicitors. Doesn't sound that promising to me tbh, if it has taken them all this time.

Thank you fuckwittery we are in London, recommendations would be much appreciated.

We don't have a new firm to sort out DPs claim (not my son - someone upthread misread that) We don't have any money to take it elsewhere, this firm have spent all the money in the legal expenses pot. Although we are not too sure on what, and nor would it appear are they!

redhelenb we already have solicitors in the country where it happened, the legal expenses insurer appoint a solicitor in the UK and effectively give them all the money and they then appoint an agent in the relevant country. So in effect we have two firms of solicitors, but we view it that our 'contract' is with the UK solicitors which is why we are concentrating our attention on them at present.

One more question - if we did accept this compensation, would they be able to demand that we waive our right to sue them?

Thank you so much. I cannot tell you how stressful this has all been over the past few years. Advice is greatly appreciated!

So they stole £30k from your insurance company and have just about scuppered your chances of bringing a case and getting £500k compensation??? And they're trying fob you off with £5k??? If I were you I would be insisting that the firm give you the full £30k that they squandered so that you can take it and use it to bring a case with a non criminal competent bunch of solicitors. They cannot just accept that amount of cash then do nothing with it and give you a paltry 5k at the end, having done none of the work they were paid for.