In the majority of cases it’s not so easy to answer this question with a straightforward Yes or No. What we can normally say to you is that we are either confident that we can win your claim, confident there is a chance of winning the claim, or not so confident at all. If we take a claim on a No Win, No Fee basis that means we are confident there is a chance of success. I’ll explain how it works to give you the best insight I can:
With a proper good lawyer, the No Win, No Fee should do EXACTLY what it says on the tin so long as you comply with the terms of the agreement; if the claim does not win, you should not be charged any fees. So yes, if a claim doesn’t win, we do lose out on money and have spent money on fighting your case for no reward. We are of course a business, so we aim to turnover a profit whilst we fight tooth and nail for our client’s claims, so why on earth would we agree to take on a claim with the risk of not getting paid?
Well, that’s kind of the point – the risk. We assess your claim and make an informed decision as to whether we are confident that we can win the claim. If we think there is a good enough chance of winning the claim, we will be happy to take the risk of the case on and agree to work on the No Win, No Fee basis. It’s all about whether we think we have a good enough chance of winning the claim and therefore recovering our legal fees from the other side; which is what we do if the claim is successful.
Here are a few examples: you are hit in the back by another car whilst you were stationary on the approach to a roundabout. The law is clear – it is the obvious duty of the other driver to make sure they stop in time and not crash in to you. If they do, they are at fault. How can you be at fault if they hit you when you were stationary? In this instance I would be very confident that we can win your claim, so we can offer the No Win, No Fee straight away!
If you are at work, and you are injured because another colleague hits you with a forklift truck by mistake, your employer is what we call vicariously liable, which means that they have to compensate for the negligence of a colleague. Again, I’m very confident we can win this claim, so we’d easily help you out on a No Win, No Fee basis. If a machine at work suddenly breaks and injures you, employers can be found to be strictly liable in cases where employees are injured by work equipment. So again, I’d definitely offer you a No Win, No Fee claim.
Here’s another example – you slip in a supermarket because the floor is wet from a spillage. Now in this situation, the individual circumstances can have an effect on whether we are confident in the claim or not. If there were no wet floor signs or cordons, then we are confident enough to run the claim on a No Win, No Fee basis. However, the duty in law for the supermarket is to reasonably inspect and maintain their premises. Normally this can be achieved with a simple inspection and cleaning policy. Now, irrelevant of whether there were signs or cordons, if they can prove they have a good system in place, they can, and will, defend the claim. But the only way we can ever know if they have such a system is by making a claim and getting them to investigate the matter.
This example highlights a situation where we are confident enough that there is a chance of winning the claim, but we could never guarantee whether the claim will win. If they can prove they have a good system in place, it’s likely we would have to discontinue the claim (after considerable review of the evidence of course) on the No Win, No Fee basis. We go our separate ways, and we write off our fees.
Another example in this category of “we can take it on but can’t guarantee success” is the classic council tripper. The same rules apply – the council actually has a special defence under Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980 that means they can defend a claim with relative ease if they can show they have a reasonable system of inspection and maintenance in place. Reasonable, for a cul-de-sac in the sticks of Devon, may be every 12 months. So if that pothole is formed in between inspections, they can defend the claim – irrelevant how badly injured you are.
On the flip side, if you slip over in a supermarket and there is clearly a wet floor sign next to the spillage, we would probably be unwilling to investigate your claim on a No Win, No Fee basis.
Please note this though – you should ALWAYS get in touch with us and ask us the big question as to whether we think you have a claim or not. Don’t feel daft about asking; you never know, what you may think is a silly chance of making a claim actually may well be a good case.
We understand personal injury law, it’s what we do, so give us a call on 0800 634 75 75 and we can assess your claim over the phone for free.