The Chronicle Live has reported that a lorry driver has received £4,000.00 in compensation having slipped on some cat litter in an Asda store.  It is stated that Ian Burridge was delivering to Asda in Stanley, County Durham, and had asked some of his colleagues for a broom so that he could tidy away some cat litter.  Mr Burridge was told that there was no broom available and was unfortunate enough to later slip on some cardboard which was covering the cat litter. 

As a result of the accident, Mr Burridge has developed osteoarthritis for which there is no cure and it is a condition that is only likely to get worse.  Mr Burridge still continues to use painkillers and complains that his knee hurts when he is driving and when he has to go up stairs.

Nichola Waugh, who was representing Mr Burridge, has remarked that ‘Mr Burridge has been a victim of his colleagues’ flippant attitude towards health and safety…If they had taken more care, the accident would never have happened.’  And she is right.  When you go to work, you do not expect to be injured.  Your employer is under a duty of care to ensure that whilst you are at work your health and safety is protected.  So, when Mr Burridge highlighted the problem of the cat litter to his colleagues, his employers should have reacted, or should have at least had a broom available, so that this hazard could have been stopped.
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A rear end shunt refers to a situation where a negligent driver collides into the rear of your car. This most commonly happens when the innocent party is sat stationery, and the negligent driver fails to take heed of the fact that traffic has stopped in front of him.

A common injury associated with these types of accidents is that of whiplash. Whiplash can be experienced by different people in different  – I have listed the common symptoms below:

• Pain, stiffness and/or tenderness in the neck area
• Reduced or even loss of mobility in the neck
• Pins and needles type sensations in the arms
• Recurrent  and severe headaches

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Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS), also know as Vibration White Finger, affects thousands of people each year.  It is an industrial disease and is normally found in people who have been exposed to large amounts of vibrations in their hands and/or arms.  The typical effects of this disease is for the sufferer to feel a sort of numbness in their fingers; in particularly severe cases, their fingers may turn white.  Worse still, the sufferer could lose all feeling in the affected hand, or their whole hand may actually turn white, or they may lose their fingers.  If you believe you have any of these symptoms, it would be wise to firstly consult a doctor – should you be diagnosed with HAVS, get in touch with a quality injury lawyer who will be able to advise you as to any potential claim you may have.

The people who tend to suffer from HAVS are manual labourers who are exposed to vibrations on a daily basis, having handled vibrating hand tools, such as chainsaws or drills, for prolonged periods of time.  If your professional injury lawyer believes you may have a claim for compensation, it will be because they believe that your employer has allowed you to be too frequently exposed to vibrations. 

It is interesting to know that in the last seven years the Government has paid compensation in a sum of £100m to those who have contracted HAVS.  Furthermore, in 1997 one case saw seven coal miners being awarded over £125,000 in compensation each having suffered HAVS as a result of their working activities.
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If you add up all the time you spend in a supermarket over your lifetime, I think you may be surprised at how large the result comes out as. Together with this, all bands of people use and require the services a supermarket offers – whether this be the elderly, the young, or those that may be suffering with a medical condition. With this in mind, it is crucial that safety standards are kept incredibly high – and on the most part, this is the case; however, for a small minority of people, accidents can happen.

If you have had an accident in a supermarket that was not your fault, you may be entitled to claim for compensation.  Supermarkets, like anywhere else, have a duty to protect their customers, as far as is reasonably possible, from risks to their health and safety, and in doing so, must comply with strict health and safety standards. Therefore, if you have had an accident due to their negligence, you may have a claim.

There are many potential hazards in a supermarket; some of which I have listed below:
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Sending your child off to begin their first day of school can be a challenging thing to see. However, we all put our trust in the fact that the staff at the school will take good care of our children.  On the whole, this trust is well-founded; however, there are a small minority of people out there for whom this is not the case.

We hear from many distressed parents whose children have suffered an accident whilst at school which was through no fault of their own, and we are able to give free legal advice in order to assess whether they have a valid claim.

Litigation friend
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We help people with whiplash injuries on a daily basis. They are the most common form of injury sustained from a road accident. As expert personal injury lawyers we can guarantee a maximum payout for a whiplash injury for a whiplash compensation claim. But how much are we talking about for a successful claim in terms of payout?
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What is a No Win No Fee? Does it really do what it says on the tin? Where’s the catch? What do I have to pay? Surely it can’t be too good to be true?

Well – with a good No Win No Fee like ours, it certainly isn’t too good to be true!

There are so many different types of No Win No Fee agreements – you could get lost in a sea of them if you pass your details to more than a few solicitors. For the most part, they do what they say on the tin. But the little variations can mean the difference between a lawyer with the power to charge, and lawyer without the power to charge.
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The Watford Observer has reported that a Mr Mark Seabrook has obtained £5 million in compensation in the High Court last week. It came after Mr Seabrook was left paralysed back in 2006 when his motor vehicle was hit by a negligent thirty driver in Watford. In fact, the full list of injuries included numerous fractures to his ribs, a broken leg, as well as spinal, chest, lung and head traumas.  To make the matter even worse, the negligent driver had stolen the car that hit Mr Seabrook’s vehicle.

Not only has Mr Seabrook now been compensated for his devastating injuries, but Salliaman Khan, the negligent thief, has also been jailed for eight months.

In awarding Mr Seabrook this huge amount of compensation, account was taken of that fact that Mr Seabrook’s life had been ruined by the paralysis – that his job opportunities were now limited, and that he had in fact lost his job, and that he would need care and assistance for the rest of his life having now been confined to a wheel chair.
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It seems no surprise that we are getting an increasing amount of road traffic accident claims. One reason for this could be the increasing amount of traffic on the roads, with many people not paying the necessary care and attention.

One accident hotspot that I will discuss in this blog is that of roundabouts. Many people can find roundabouts difficult to navigate and nerve wracking to tackle – especially some of the larger ones. If someone is not completely sure of where they are going and are unsure of which exit to take, and which lane to be in, this can be understandable – but it is sometimes these people who cause many of the accidents on our roundabouts.

Accidents can occur on a roundabout for a number of reasons – some of which I list below:
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It was reported in ‘The Guardian‘ today that a Surrey business woman has been awarded over £6 million pounds in compensation due to a botched face lift carried out on her. This left her with extensive nerve damage to the right side of her face, causing her face to appear distorted, and for it to constantly contract, also leaving a constant buzzing sensation around her eye.

In a trial in February, the Claimant not only claimed compensation for her injuries, but also for her injuries causing her financial and IT consultancy firm to go into administration to which she was a 50% shareholder. The Surrey business woman calculated her loss to be at £54 million – a figure she wished to claim a proportion of due to her injuries.

The Judge commented that the Claimant was a highly successful business woman who, prior to the surgery, was confident, happy, and outgoing. He commented that the repercussions of the surgery had affected all areas of her life, including her marriage. He stated that some of the reward also reflected her possible future loss of earnings taking into account her psychiatric symptoms and loss of confidence as a result of the accident; especially when conducting business face to face.
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