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We live in an age where beauty is everything. We’re all concerned about how we look, and most people in modern society today follow the latest trends, fashions, and are out to look as good as they can. It’s no surprise therefore that more and more people are turning to cosmetic surgery to achieve this. It’s a common thing nowadays for people to nip down to their local clinic for a bit of Botox or a tummy tuck.

But it isn’t just the little things we’re doing to ourselves. A huge amount of celebrities have had facelifts, nose jobs, boob jobs, and all sorts. The private clinics are (I imagine) making huge amounts of money from the people who will go to any lengths to look as good as they can. As with most things like this in life, with an increase in private surgery comes the obvious increase in people making personal injury claims for surgery gone wrong!

A classic example is those who choose to have their surgery abroad. Whilst people are happy to pay to look good, we’re still in financial meltdown with the ongoing recession and no signs of recovery. My understanding of cosmetic surgery is that it isn’t exactly cheap to have! So people are often tempted to go abroad where they can get a deal at a lower price. But naturally people need to be careful about this kind of thing, as you have to ask yourself why the surgery is cheaper abroad. How can you be confident that the quality of the surgeon is going to be as good? How can you be confident that the regulations over in foreign countries is as good? Ultimately, you can’t.
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Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery (ENT Surgery) is the study of disorders in relation to the ears, the nose and the throat – rather obviously. This is done by an ENT Surgeon. If you have sustained injury as a result of negligent treatment or care from an ENT Surgeon then you may have a course of action in medical negligence. Although this is relatively uncommon, patients can still receive sub standard care and it could even be that a mistake has been made during surgery. This can lead to often serious injuries and distress for the patient.

Negligence in this area can be from a wide range of sources. Initially negligence could arise from a failure to diagnose a condition. Negligence can also come from sub standard treatment or actual surgical mistakes. For example if you sustained nerve damage as a result of negligence during treatment, you may be able to make a claim. There are other potential injuries such as damage to bones surrounding the eye/skull, permanent loss of smell etc. Clearly with surgery there are certain risks and in this sense clinical negligence cases are more complex. The potential injuries are severe.
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It’s been a cold few months – and the roads are littered with defects and potholes. Common defects arise from the areas around drain covers, manhole covers, and similar such holes in the ground will often have defects around the edges due to adverse weather conditions. As soon as a cover like this gets sunken in to the ground, a tripping hazard ensues due to the surrounding sunken ground. That or just the general ground being rough and defective which causes instability and a hazard as equally as dangerous.

So the big question is this – can you make a claim for compensation if you end up injured due to sunken ground around a drain or manhole cover? It all depends on who has the responsibility and whether they have complied with the law.

Commonly its local councils who have the authority. If the hole in the ground is for utilities and therefore “privately owned” so to speak, then it is common that they allow the authority for it to rest with the council in any event. When it comes to the highways, whoever is responsible has a duty to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the highway is safe to use. Councils usually uphold this with regular systems of inspection and maintenance. If the company who owns the hole and the cover has a deal with the council to include their hole and cover within these inspections, then it may well fall within their responsibility.
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If you’re a sports fan, you’re probably aware of the dreaded cruciate knee injury. The cruciate ligaments are useful for knee stability on impact – so running or jumping is where they come in to play the most. Sadly the knee joint can be fairly easy to injure, particularly in sports. Tearing or rupturing a ligament in the knee can be severely debilitating. As the title of this article suggests, I’ll focus on ruptured ligaments.

A ligament rupture by definition is where the ligament is literally torn in to two (or I suppose more) pieces. Tearing usually means the ligaments remains intact but part of the tissue is torn or ripped. Ruptured usually means it’s been split. If the ligament tears off a piece of bone with it, this commonly known as an avulsion fracture and can usually be repaired with the bone being sewn back on. You’re better off with that than a rupture – I’ll explain why.
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Most people want to know at the outset of a claim how much compensation they are likely to recover. While this question is understandable to ask, Solicitors cannot give you a value with any great certainty at the outset of your claim. To understand why this is the case, you need to look at how claims are valued. In law, another term for value is quantum. When a claim is initiated your injuries are more likely to be still ongoing rather than resolved, unless there was some delay between the accident and you bringing a claim for compensation.

Either way, to value a claim we rely upon medical evidence. We arrange for you to be examined and assessed by a suitably qualified and experienced medical professional. The type of expert that examines you will depend on the nature of your injuries. You may be examined by a General Practitioner Expert, an Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeon, an Orthopaedic Expert, a Psychologist, etc.
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If you sustain injury on someone else’s premises or land, then you may be entitled to recover compensation.  This is because occupiers of premises or land are under a duty to take reasonable care for those using the premises or land. This area of law is commonly governed by the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 (which deals with accidents involving lawful visitors) and the Occupiers Liability Act 1984 (which deals with accidents involving trespassers).

An “occupier” of premises or land is someone who is in control of that premises or land. This could be control of a supermarket, a shop, a warehouse, a car park, etc. The occupier could be an individual, a company, a local council or a partnership. If there is an argument or disagreement as to whether or not someone is an occupier, the Courts look at the judgement in Wheat v Lacon [1966] which noted that a person is an occupier if he has a sufficient degree of control over premises that he ought to realise that any failure on his part to use care may result in injury to a person lawfully there. The Occupiers Liability Act also notes that occupiers must be prepared for children to be less careful than adults. This means that if a child does something a little bit silly, such as eating poisonous berries in a park, sustaining injury, then liability could be established – this was the facts in the case of Glasgow v Taylor [1922].
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Hearing deteriorates with age and this is something that we cannot avoid. As we get older it is likely that we will require hearing aids. When people start to lose their hearing it is natural and automatic to put the deficiency down to age. However if you worked in an environment with excessive noise levels, have you considered that you may be suffering from industrial deafness/noise induced hearing loss?

The fact of the matter is that many people are not aware that they are suffering from industrial deafness. They notice a hearing deficiency and automatically assume this is due to the natural ageing process.

If you were exposed to excessive noise at work then it is likely that you will have developed industrial deafness/noise induced hearing loss. You may not notice a hearing problem at the time of the exposure to excessive noise. This is normal. What happens is the noise levels damage your hearing but you only notice the hearing loss when you get older and age associated hearing loss adds to the noise induced hearing loss. By having a hearing test, an Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeon may be able to advise you if you have any hearing loss which is due to noise exposure.
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Pursuing a claim for compensation is a big decision and is one that in a lot of circumstances is a necessity to cover any losses and of course help with any future inconvenience. Therefore when you are looking for an Injury Lawyer, you want one that will ensure your claim is run efficiently and brought to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible.

The first step to ensuring that this will happen is to instruct your own solicitor directly. This cuts out any middle men such as claims management companies and claims farmers who will simply gather your details, and hold on to them before referring them to a solicitor. This solicitor may then take time to process the claim and contact you and so on and so forth. As you can see this is a lengthy process and one that can simply be completely avoided by contacting a solicitor direct. Here at the Injury Lawyers, we can get your claim moving the exact same day. We simply gather all the information we need and get things moving- it really is that simple.
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Potholes are unfortunately very common on both our footpaths and roads and therefore accidents resulting from them are also a lot more common than people would think! Injuries caused in these accidents can be incredibly painful and debilitating so can you claim for compensation?

The straight forward answer is yes but they are not the easiest of claims – the council is under a duty to take all “reasonable steps” to ensure the area is safe. Therefore, if they have good inspection regimes in place this can make your claim incredibly difficult. It is simply unrealistic and probably not that fair to expect the council to be able to keep an eye on every bit of pavement or road for when a pothole appears- especially with the in-climate weather we are experiencing at the moment!

Another key aspect of pothole claims is that the defect has to be a “foreseeable risk” – therefore one of the key bits of evidence and one of the most important things that a personal injury solicitor will request from you is photographs and measurements of the defect!
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What do we mean when we say GENUINE lawyer? Surely anyone saying they are a personal injury firm must be one? Unfortunately not!

There are certain companies out there that simply gather claims and direct them to actual law firms for a price. These companies are known as Case Management Companies or claims farmers. Ensuring you have a genuine personal injury lawyer running your case is extremely important for 2 main reasons:

1. The service level you will receive
2. The settlement you may receive.

Basically, by going through a Claims Management Company, rather than instructing your own solicitor can affect both of these things and unfortunately in a negative way.
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