There are what we sometimes refer to as ‘standard accidents’ or ‘common cases’ for personal injury claims; but as a firm of expert injury lawyers, we represent victims for all sorts of accident scenarios. When Miss B approached us for an injury she had sustained when staying at a hotel, it was certainly an unusual set of circumstances. But the accident in her view and in our view was something she could claim for despite it being hard to prove – this case can show the power of issuing court proceedings.
In short she sustained minor burns from boiled kettle water which fell from a shelf in the hotel room she was staying at. How the kettle fell from the shelf was perhaps the unusual part – she was trying to open out an ironing board which was stuck and wouldn’t fold out. During inspection to try and identify why it wasn’t opening out, it suddenly flipped open and knocked her in to the shelf with the kettle on. Something fell off the board as well, and the motion of hitting the shelf then caused the kettle to fall and the water to land on her.
Boiling water burns and scalds can of course be severe – whilst this was what could be classed as a minor case, it could have been so much worse. Clearly the defect with the board was the underlying cause of the injury as alleged but the burden of proof is always on the Claimant to prove that they are owed compensation.
As you can imagine, proving that this happened as alleged would not be an easy thing to do.
The insurers of course denied liability and simply put the blame on our client. They bluntly proposed that Miss B was entirely to blame and that there was nothing wrong with the ironing board in question. But as well as there being a duty on the Claimant to prove the accident there is also a duty on the Defendant to provide evidence and documentation to support their denial of responsibility.
We continued with the claim, obtained medical evidence, and sought advice from specialist barristers. As we do with most claims, we funded the entirety of the claim on a no win, no fee basis. Sadly both the barristers were not confident enough in the prospects of success which is where most law firms would discontinue the claim for lack of evidence.
But we’re not most law firms!
Despite the odds being against us we boldly carried on and issued court proceedings which was somewhat of a turning point in the claim. We also proposed an offer for settlement and we continued to chase them for any evidence of documentation surrounding the defect on the ironing board which they continually failed to respond to properly.
With the insurers recognising that we were prepared to carry on we received a counter offer to settle the claims shortly thereafter and we advised Miss B to accept it. With the risks of the case and the injuries being minor, the offer of £1,200 was a fantastic result; especially since most law firms would have dropped the case after the negative advices.
We fund our clients claims on a no win, no fee basis which means our clients are confident and safe in the knowledge that they’re not going to have to lose out if they can’t win a claim (subject to terms and conditions of course). So if you want help and advice from an expert injury law firm and you want to sleep happily at night knowing that we’re prepared to find the case for you, call 0800 634 7575 today.
