Honest views on personal injury claims - no offence will be taken

[jampot]

As some may know I work for a firm of PI lawyers and am interested in how real people (not involved in law) view this aspect of the legal profession. I don't intend to argue back on points and no offence will be taken by honest comments but just wondered what the general feeling was.

I don't like the effect the 'you can claim for anything - someone is always to blame' culture has on people with genuine claims. A few years ago I had an accident that was unequivocally the other party's fault, their insurers accepted liability without any quibbles. But they were very cagey on the personal injury aspect, and when I claimed for my injuries (which while not major have had life-time repercussions) I found myself in a dilemma - I worried that because there are so many inflated claims, even if I stated honestly what my situation was, it would be discounted, so should I exaggerate? In the end I stuck to honesty and got a very reasonable award. But I do think the the claims culture that is evolving pushes people towards dishonesty - as well as excessive CYA.

Have only read the first few posts but I agree with Yorkiegirl- if you've been hurt then i suppose it's ok to claim but I do hate the adverts on the telly... i also think it encourages us as a nation to claim- we had a boy in school whose family are serial compensation claimers and he 'slipped' in the gym and claimed against the lea. Now the LEA decided it was cheaper to settle out of court and paid direct- the result was he got money but the school 'lost' that money- it peed me off because we could have done something with that money- like buy books!

I agree that the ' real' cases of negligence are overlooked at the expense of frivolous or greedy claims.For example it is notoriously difficult to prove culpability in corporate manslaughter cases - look at the recent dropping of charges in the Potters Bar train crash ( I think 9 people died).There have been other cases too, one where a student was working for a construction company and was decapitated on his very forst day. He had received no safety training of any sort ( can't remember name of company)and was handling huge dangerous machinery.Victims like this are written off and their bereaved families receive nothing.Yet someone with a much more minor injury can get thousands.The laws on corporate responsibility MUST change or else the law is a bloody ass.

I recently read a report that a huge majority of riding schools across the UK have closed down because there are hardly any companies left who will insure them, as claims for injuries have rocketed .Children have a fall from a horse and their parents sue the riding school.Why don't they sue the bloody horse? after all, If Caligula elected a horse to his Senate then we can sue them can we not? so pretty soon there will be no riding schools at all. I work as a teacher and I can honestly say I will NEVER go on a school trip of any kind, even a day out to a museum, ever again because the risks of legal action are so prevalent.Many of my colleagues also refuse and believe me, this will increase until there are no school trips of any kind any more unless people stop being so greedy and accept that in life, accidents happen and we just accept that.

It's got ridiculously out of hand. Of course there should be compensation for people genuinely injured through no fault of their own and therefore unable to work or whatever, but I am sick to death of ambulance chasing tv ads, etc. It's vile. And I do agree that it has a massive knock-on effect to society as a whole. There's a BIG difference between making sure regulations etc are in place to protect employees/the public and so on, and having to cover your back every move you make.

Little anecdote - I work in a bookstore that has a coffee shop. A woman came in recently with a toddler. She ordered a cup of tea, put it down on a table and wandered off to have a browse. Her toddler, left to his own devices, reached up to the table, grabbed for the cup and spilled hot tea all over himself (luckily, not harmed). The woman then threatened to sue the company for serving tea made with boiling water and told my colleague that she'd have her out of a job for 'not taking care of her customers' - i.e. not babysitting toddlers while the parents go off and do their own thing. Stuff like this happens every day where I work.

Think the Government's to blame (aren't they always ). Their legal aid reforms stopped legal aid for personal injury claims and introduce the no-win no-fee system, encouraging sales firms and lawyers to start ambulance chasing. If they brought back legal aid, it would probably save money overall by getting rid of the 'where there's blame, there's a claim' cases. But it would increase obvious Government spending while savings would be indirect, so they won't do it.
I really don't understand why the biggest baddies, like directors who run companies where people like the student MB posted about get killed, get away with it, when smaller fish have to settle out of court even when the claim is frivolous. Can you explain, Jampot? (not suggesting is in any way your fault, of course, just that you might have a better grip on the causes than I do).

Donnie, it's interesting what you say about school trips. Heard other teachers making similar points.
Are there any statistics to show whether any teachers have actually been sued/prosecuted over school trips, or whether it's more about the fear of being sued/prosecuted?

edam - a point re:civil legal aid. Civil legal aid isn't actually a money loser for the government; more a long term loan. For cases that win, the Legal Aid Board has first dibs on its costs; solicitors have to keep hold of the damages till they have repaid the Legal Aid Board for any previous payments made to the law firms. In the vast majority of PI cases, the winning party would get awarded costs as well - or a sufficient proportion of the costs to repay the legal aid without having to deduct any money from the winning party's damages. Of course not all legal aid cases win at trial (and not absolutely all winning cases will be awarded costs) - but there are quite stringent merit tests that legal aid cases are meant to pass to get public funding, so not that many losers should get through.

so I definitely agree with you re:the demise of Legal Aid, Edam. The effect of no-win no-fee is that a winning solicitor can charge a success fee of up to 100% - a lot less for standard cases, like minor RTAs, which in practice means that if a case goes to trial (or settles) and the Claimant wins, the Defendant has to pay greater costs purely because the Claimant is funded by a Conditional Fee Agreement. NB a winning solicitor doesn't have absolute carte blanche in setting the success fee - a judge that specialises in legal costs could knock the success fee down. I am not entirely comfortable with a system in which a Defendant has to pay extra costs purely due to the way the Claimant has chosen to fund the case.

ex-lawyer now slinks off from thread that only "real people" are allowed onto

Does anyone else find that they can't do certain things because companies are so worried about personal injury claims? I would love to take my three children aged 5, 3 and 1 swimming but the local pool won't let me. I would be quite happy to take full responsibility for them and sign a form to that effect, but the leisure company is so afraid of being sued that they won't let me do that either. So no swimming for us .

Ludicrous. A teacher friend of mine took some kids to Italy last year, and at night time, they took turns to stay awake so that the teenage girls they were with could not sneak out to a night club, as if they ended up raped and murdered, the teachers might be blamed, even though they'd told the girls they obviously weren't allowed out. I think that's an unreasonable level of supervision to expect - teachers on school trips are entitled to expect to be able to sleep normally and not be blamed if children that old disobey rules that they are perfectly capable of understanding.

Thanks MTS, useful insight. I see you as a real person, even if you are a lawyer!

edam

oohhh, dont get me started on this. Firstly, as somebody else has mentioned, I would dearly love to take my 3 and 2 year old swimming and cant, 2 children under 5 have to have 2 adults in our swmimming pool. Also, our playgroup had to cancel a day trip as they couldnt afford the extra insurance. All this is to do with the compensation culture that we are now in.

I have had a number of occasions where I could have claimed, fell down a step at work and have a bad scar on my leg, but I fell down the step - my employers didnt make me fall down the step, my fault!. Hurt my neck in a car accident, somebody hit me, but I was just grateful that I managed to get my car sorted, it was an accident, nobody to blame!

Mind you I should have claimed, all our insurance premiums have gone up because of this.
Its not going to change now, in my eyes its just going to get worse and worse. While, people still claim, insurance companies are going to hike the prices up, organisations will worry about claims and at the end of the day the only people to suffer are the consumers.

I'm in Health & safety which somewhat accounts for my views- fair enough if someone has a genuine claim but IMO far too many try & wangle as much money as they can for exaggerated reasons. I write investigation reports & quite often, the person is as much to blame as anyone - yet still they try & claim. I also think that a lot of people think they can claim from a company without anyone knowing !

The sueing culture that has evolved (or drifted over from USA) has destroyed a basic element of British culture - the ability and opportunity to request, receive and accept a genuine apology. We don't seem to be allowed to apologise now - which is often all the injured party wants - for fear of 'admitting liability'. It is such a shame, and I'm sure that many times the other party would like to apologise, but doesn't dare.

Must also add that I had a run in with the National Trust over not heating up a bowl of baby food for DS when he was small "because of safety". (ie in case its too hot & he burns himself). I explained that if need be I would sign a disclaimer & take full responsibility - but it was still no. Nor would they let me use their microwave. However - they would give me a jug (no lid) of boiling hot water to place on the table in front of DS !!!! I could spout for hours on this topic !

Our local schools are no longer allowed to sell homebaking at fetes etc in case someone sues the council for getting food poisoning. So now, our children have to eat shop-bought cakes with loads of additives or go without on what should be a fun occasion.

But we still don't have a compensation culture. A lot of these things are caused by insurance companies taking the piss, not individuals. No-one pulls the insurance companies up on their policies; for example, if I run into someone in my car, even if it is my fault, I am not allowed to say sorry, I wasn't paying attention, because if I do, my insurance will be null and void and won't pay out. And often, people or companies will use the vague excuse "insurance" for not doing something they can't be arsed to. Then everyone goes away and blames the compensation culture, rather than the lazy sods who can't be bothered to pull their fingers out.

I disagree, MeanBean. There has to be some precedent for the companies to follow. Sure, in some cases it's sheer laziness on the part of organisers, but why do insurance premiums go up, why are people told they have to get exhorbitant levels public liability insurance in order to sell home-baked cakes?

We blame the ambulance-chasers, and the change in Legal Aid, but surely the judges are at fault too? If a case can't be settled between the parties, and is nonsensical (the porky and the climbing frame, for example) why doesn't the judge throw it out, stating in his ruling that people have to take responsibility for their own actions as well? It's because such cases get compensation that others believe they will get compensation too.

Most PI cases don;t get to Court as the tendency is to negotiate in a bid to reduce costs, I agree with most in that its the ridiculous Claimants that tend to come off better in many injury claims. My personal opinion is that there is a right for people to claim who have genuinely been injured and probably some of whom will actually suffer hardship due to lack of earnings/extra care as a direct result of their injuries - its the dossers that annoy me and the claims companies who are just plain unethical in their ambulance chasing techniques - on the whole solicitors don't tend to do this as there are strict rules laid down by the Law Society on where and how they can obtain work.