When pursuing a claim for personal injury the process can seem like a daunting one to undertake – however, when claiming for compensation there are certain time frames that the defendant must adhere to which can make the process a little more speedy and hassle free.

Pre action protocols were recommended by Lord Woolf in his final Access to Justice Report of July 1996 to build on and increase the benefits of early but well informed settlement. Having a specific protocol in place has many benefits for your claim including:

1. Better and earlier exchange of information between the parties
2. It enables claims to be settled easily and fairly, often  avoiding the need for litigation
3. Promotion of the provision of medical and rehabilitation treatment for the injured party
4. Standardisation of how claims are run across the board

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Well this has probably happened to most of us – we get on a bus and before we have the chance to sit down, the bus pulls away. Now most people would still be able to successfully sit themselves down safely as there are hand rails to hold onto to keep your balance. However most of us would probably say that the bus driver should wait until passengers are seated. Whatever we think, in law is a bus driver negligent for pulling away before a passenger is seated?

Put simply there is no specific duty on a bus driver to ensure passengers are seated before pulling away. Although bus drivers do have to take reasonable care to ensure that injury is not caused as a result of the bus pulling away abruptly or before a passenger is seated. This means that extra care is needed in the case of elderly passengers for example. Elderly passengers are identified as being more at risk of injury if a bus pulls away before they are seated for obvious reasons. This is because they may not have the strength or balance to keep on their feet. Looking at the bus driver’s point of view, they are running to a strict timetable and if they are behind they will naturally be trying to catch up. However safety should always be paramount.
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It is understandable that when you have been involved in a car accident the first thing on your mind is not to write down the car registration plate of the other car. We simply put our trust in that person doing the right thing and exchanging details with you.

However, unfortunately in this world some people do not always do the right thing and therefore on some occasions the other person may simply drive away from the scene before you’ve even had chance to process what has actually happened.

Fortunately in the UK there is an organisation called the Motor Insurance Bureau which enables people to pursue a traffic accident injury claim even without the details of the other car. The organisation is funded by all the insurance companies in the country and deals with around 50,000 claims every year!
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A main concern for many people when they have had an accident is that they may not be able to return to their trade. For example: if an electrician is involved in an accident in which they seriously damage their hand, it is unlikely that they will be able to continue to work in this trade if they can’t use their hand as well as they used to be able to. When this happens you are said to be “disadvantaged on the open labour market” as your employability is ultimately affected.

Primarily, it is important that if you feel your injury is going to affect your line of work that you mention this at the start of your claim. This is because the burden of proof is on the claimant and therefore you (and your injury lawyer!) must show that the injury will affect future prospects of work. Of course, in the above example it is quite straight forward but this is not always the case, especially if the injury concerned is partly psychological.

There are different circumstances that can arise under this heading. It may be that you cannot continue to work at all, can simply not work in a particular trade or cannot work in your trade for a certain amount of time. In all these circumstances there is the possibility to claim for the decline in employability.
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When you are suffering from an injury as a result of an accident, it is common that you will incur some losses. This can include things such as loss of earnings, medical and treatment expenses but also care and assistance whereby your friends and family have to help with everyday tasks that when uninjured can seem pretty mundane.

When claiming for losses however, you do not simply have free reign to claim everything and anything you can think of- your losses have got to be “reasonable”. Although at first this may seem like a legal technicality, it does usually come down to common sense and you can ensure you are staying within the proximity by simply thinking “is this reasonable?” every time you are going to incur a loss. For example:  going on a 5* all inclusive spa holiday because you have suffered a neck injury may not be – but going for a few massages to release tension probably is.

Mitigating your losses basically means keeping your losses to a reasonable minimum. For example; in relation to loss of earnings if a medical report states that you are fit to work after 2 weeks and you chose to stay off longer, the extra loss incurred may not be recoverable as you cannot be seen to have helped yourself.
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With the inclimate weather we have been having recently (Flooding, snowing, black ice!)  it’s not surprising that there has been a lot of damage to the roads and the high street. Potholes caused by the heavy rains washing loose tarmac away and freezing water creating hazardous cracks as it expands can unfortunately lead to a rise in holes and a rise in accidents. So what is the procedure for pursuing a claim if you have been unfortunate enough to suffer an injury because of a trip, slip or fall?

Firstly, it is important to make clear that these types of claims can be quite difficult and therefore it is important that you seek the help of an experienced personal injury lawyer with extensive experience in the area.

If you are seeking to pursue a claim against the council there are a few things that you will have to do to ensure you have higher prospects of being successful. This is because the council can only be expected to have taken “reasonable steps” to ensure the safety of the area. This means that if they can show that they have maintenance regimes in place that ensure the area is checked to be safe at regular intervals, your claim may be difficult to pursue. This is simply because it would be unreasonable to expect the council to be able to know whenever any new defect is created immediately. For example: If the heavy floods create a hazard by washing tarmac away on the Monday and you have your accident on the Tuesday- is it reasonable to expect the council to have even known about the defect let alone fix it?
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Some people who are wanting to claim are often worried about doing so, mainly because they have concerns surrounding the injury they have suffered. The common worries are that their injury is a pre-existing one that has been or the accident has aggravated something that may not be common in every person and therefore may not be directly linked with the defendant’s negligent actions.

For example:  Bob works in a factory where he works with molten metal. Another employee negligently drops something into the liquid metal causing it to splash on Bob’s lip causing a serious burn. However, it also happens to land on premalignant tissue and consequently the metal triggers the cancer making Bob seriously ill. The other employee of course could never have expected the splash to cause such an injury – so can Bob claim for compensation for the cancer that has been triggered even though the most foreseeable injury is the burn?

The answer is yes and the above circumstances come from a leading case of Smith v Leech. A principle known as the “eggshell skull rule” means that the defendant has to take the victim as he finds them. Therefore if someone has a reaction to something but that reaction is because the claimant has a pre-existing condition or is more sensitive to something, the defendant will still be held liable for the injury.  This rule ensures that a defendant will not escape liability merely by relying on the claimant’s vulnerability or particular nature.
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Suffering from a psychological injury can be just as distressing as suffering from any physical one but claiming for psychological injury can be an incredibly difficult thing to do sometimes.

Commonly the main thing in these claims is that the injury HAS to be a recognised psychological injury; i.e. not just natural human emotions such as stress, anxiety and worry.  Therefore if you are looking to proceed with this type of claim it is imperative to seek a medical diagnosis.

Secondly, another common thing is establishing whether you would be classed as a “primary” or “secondary” victim. The leading case in this area comes from something that has been in the news a lot recently and which claimed the Christmas number one this year – The Hillsborough Disaster of 1989.

Alcock v Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, concerned several claimants wishing to pursue a claim for psychiatric damage caused by either seeing relatives suffer in the crush or alternatively experiencing the aftermath of the disaster. The court grouped these types of claimants into the category of “secondary” victims as they were not injured or in danger of immediate injury; those that were, were classed as “primary” victims.
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Have you ever bought something that wasn’t exactly up to standard? The common answer to that is most probably yes – but has the product caused injury or loss?

The consumer protection act is the law that protects consumers from the risk of illness or injury due to faulty products. This could be from a food source to any household item bought. The act protects the consumer from the products which do not meet a reasonable level of safety.

Of course, 100% level of safety cannot always be guaranteed, but has to be as safe as reasonably possible.

Some cases involving product liability can include:
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A common question when making a claim is:

“How much will I have to pay?”

Generally, the answer should be nothing! No Win, No Fee should mean exactly what it says; If you lose the claim, you don’t pay any legal fees!
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