If you are injured on a bus, can you make a claim for personal injury compensation? Can the bus driver be held liable? When might they be held liable, and pave the way for you to make a successful injury claim? Here’s a little advice about it.

Bus drivers have a responsibly to pay due care and attention to avoid any passengers becoming injured whilst under their care. Ultimately the bus company will be responsible and will have to pay out, usually through insurers, in the event of making a claim. As a passenger in a collision, you pretty much have a guaranteed claim for compensation if you are injured.

So aside from the obvious avoidance of road accidents, i.e. if the bus driver is responsible for causing a road traffic collision, when else can they be held liable?
Read More

From the perspective of a workplace personal injury compensation claim, your employer owes you a very important duty of care for them to adhere to The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.

Regulation 4 of the legislation states:

(a) so far as is reasonably practicable, avoid the need for his employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work which involve a risk of their being injured; or

(b) where it is not reasonably practicable to avoid the need for his employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work which involve a risk of their being injured

Further to this, employers are responsible to risk assess all manual handling activities and assess whether both the employee who will be undertaking the manoeuvre and the route are suitable. So things like stairs, which can be an obvious hazard, must be taken in to serious consideration. Common problems caused by stairs when it comes to manual handling are:
Read More

The definition of medical negligence is an ‘act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice‘. If a doctor or nurses care falls below the expected standard, their actions may be considered negligent. It would have to be proved that the medical professional did something wrong or failed to meet their duty.

Examples of medical negligence:

• Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose
• Incorrect treatment, which leads to an adverse affect on the patient and their condition
• Being prescribed incorrect medication
• Failure to give you the standard of care expected.

The duty of a medical professional must not fall below the standard that would be expected of a reasonably competent doctor. It needs to be seen that a body of doctors would have acted in the same or similar manner, when treating the patient in question.

Inherent risks of treatment are normally not considered to be negligent, as they are simply a risk you agree to in order to receive that medical care. The risks and complications would have been present, regardless of the actions taken by the medical professional.
Read More

For most road accident personal injury compensation claims in the UK, it’s the lawyers that have to make the first offer to the insurance company to settle the claim. Before, and in many other types of claims such as accidents at work or slips and trips, we provide the other side with medical evidence and losses information and invite them to make an offer for settlement to us.

But now, due to legal reforms that came in to force from April 2010, we have to make the first offer to the other side when we provide the medical evidence and losses information.
Read More

Given there are so many lawyers out there who can represent you for a claim for personal injury compensation choosing the right one can be a mission in itself. Competition has been extreme in the personal injury industry, which is why some firms have thought of clever ways of reeling you in to using their services.

Cash up-front and a free iPad have been two of the most popular hooks used by firms to get you to sign up to their legal services. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to look at the free iPad offer and why you probably no longer see it, and why you shouldn’t really trust it…
Read More

A bit of a niche area of law here – what are you rights if you have an accident in a restaurant, or perhaps a bar or a cafe, because of a chair? Well, let’s look at the law and whether you may be entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation.

Generally speaking, unless you work at the restaurant, the law that applies is the Occupiers Liability Act, and this vital piece of legislation dictates that the occupier of a premises, i.e. those in charge or responsible at the restaurant, have a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent an injury occurring.

When it comes to chairs, what are classed as reasonable steps? Well a system of inspection would be a good start – checking to make sure that the structure of the chairs is stable and ensure there are no breaks or defects to make sure that the chair is not liable to break or collapse. A record of this should be kept as well.
Read More

At work, your employer is under a pretty heavy duty to look after your health and safety, and make sure you are not injured whilst working. When I say heavy, I mean there are a lot of workplace rules and regulations that employers must abide by, and breaching any of these regulations can pave the way to you making a work injury claim for personal compensation.
Read More

April 1^st 2013 saw the biggest shake up in the personal injury compensation claiming world ever. Some of changes affect clients directly, and we are not too happy with them, but others we are more than happy with.

The banning of referral fees was one of the highlights of the reforms we think! No longer can claims be sold for profit by claims management companies (CMC’s), insurers, garages, and all sorts of companies. People would search the net, see a company advertising No Win, No Fee services, likely not realise it’s not a law firm, and instruct them to deal with the case. They would then pass the claim to a lawyer for up to £1,000 – money that comes straight from the budget for running your claim; leading to poor levels of service and under settled claims.

So what are the new changes? Well according to updates from the government, the rules which came into force on the 8th of July mean that:
Read More

Highways agencies and local authorities have a duty to maintain highways. Slips, trips and falls on defective highways, streets, roads and pathways are very common.

Common defects can include potholes, cracked or broken paving slabs, missing manhole covers, uneven ground and no barriers or rails found on public walkways and stairs.

The Highways Act 1980 is the act for governing and maintaining the highways. Under S41 of the 1980 Act, the local authority have a duty to maintain the highways, and that duty ‘is to ensure as reasonably practicable’ that the public will have a safe passage along the highway.
Read More

It is common for accidents to occur on roundabouts, but it is sometimes difficult to determine who is at fault. Accidents can occur on roundabouts due to drivers failing to look properly when approaching traffic, speeding, failing to get into the correct lane or by sudden braking.

The Highway Code can be used as a guide to help see who is liable for a roundabout accident, as it sets out the ‘rules of the road‘.

The Highway Code (184 – 187) sets out how to approach and drive on a roundabout, and also gives a warning to drivers as to what to be aware of.

According to the Highway Code, when approaching a roundabout, a driver should be travelling at slow speed, checking all road markings and must be aware of all other road users.
Read More