Supermarkets can be a bone of contention for some, whilst for others they are an essential part of life.  Many people can’t stand the thought of the ‘big’ weekly shop due to the hassle of queuing in traffic to get in and out of the shop car park, and the queuing at tills.   This being said however many people like supermarkets as they have everything under one roof, discounts galore, and lots of choice. Whatever your feelings on the supermarket shop I can hazard a guess that many of you would not anticipate having an accident whilst shopping in one; an accident that was not your fault. If you have had an accident whilst in a supermarket that was not your fault then you may have a claim for compensation.

You may think, like many of our client’s first think but later succeed in their claims, that claiming against a supermarket is a David v Goliath sort of situation; by this I mean it is the small individual v the large corporation. This may be true, but the outcome for many is successful and this is why firms like The Injury Lawyers are here – to use our know-how and expertise to help you and support you in getting the a successful result.

There are many potential hazards in supermarkets. These can include a spillage that has been negligently left uncleaned on the floor causing a slip hazard, an item left on the floor negligently causing a trip hazard or a poorly stacked shelf causing an item/items to fall on someone.
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With the roads being such a busy and chaotic place – everyone rushing to get somewhere, be it to work, to the shop, or taking the children to school, the importance of wearing a seat belt is and should be ever more pertinent. Thus the policing surrounding the use of seat belts has also heightened since the law was introduced.

Most people know the importance of wearing seat belts. We know that wearing a seat belt greatly improves our safety in the event we are involved in a road accident. We also know that it is illegal to not wear one. As drivers we must ensure we ourselves are wearing a seatbelt as well as the passengers in our vehicle.

In view of everything we know about the use of seat belts, there may be one thing you do not know, and probably have not considered – what are the implications of not wearing a seat belt in a road traffic accident for which you want to make a personal injury claim?  Well, in answer to this, if you were not wearing a seat belt and you make a claim, any compensation which you may be entitled may be reduced by up to 25%. In legal speak this is known as contributory negligence.
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Whiplash is a common injury that is usually suffered after a road accident. It’s caused by the sudden jolting of your neck, either forward, backwards, or sideways. The muscles are stretched beyond their normal range of movement, and it can be an absolute pain to cope with!

Whiplash Symptoms

• Pain in the neck, shoulders, and back (either all three, or just some)
• Stiffness / loss of movement in the affected areas
• Headaches, drowsiness, and sometimes a feeling of sickness – even vertigo in some cases
• Pins and needles (normally in the arms)

It doesn’t matter whether you were hit in the rear, hit head on, were the victim of a driver pulling out of a side road or in front of you on a roundabout – the impact can easily cause a whiplash injury.
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Being a regular user of the roads, or maybe you would say more than regular as I drive approximately 70miles a day to work and back, I have become accustomed to the hazards of the roads.  These hazards are numerous and come in all sorts of different forms.

It can be seen that a vast proportion of road accidents occur at meeting places for cars; junctions, roundabouts, and the like.  Accidents at these places are often caused by drivers rushing and not employing the necessary care and attention.

Roundabouts:

Now it is granted that roundabouts can be large and complex, with many lanes that can be confusing as to where they lead.  Yes, these situations on roundabouts, when you are not familiar with the particular roundabout, can be nerve-wracking. This being said however it is no excuse to start trying to shift lanes at the last minute, causing other cars around to panic and try to move out of your way. Much of the time on a busy roundabout especially if it is rush hour, there is nowhere for other cars to move to – and you cannot expect them to cause an accident themselves in order to make room for you. Hence from this you can see the problem that meeting at roundabouts can cause. When utilising roundabouts it is important not to panic; if you miss your exit, you can simply go round again and change lanes when it is safe to do so.
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If you live in rented accommodation, or a property owned by someone else, the onus to ensure your living space and communal areas are safe is largely on your landlord / property owner. This is of course circumstantial – if you leave a stack of your favourite DVD’s on the floor and you trip over them, or if you spill some water on the floor and forget to clean it up, later slipping on the spillage, then it’s your fault.  What I’m talking about is the condition of the premises, including the interior fixtures and fittings, being safe and usable.

To be honest, it’s rather similar to any claim against a supermarket or a shop. The building itself must be safe – i.e. floor surfaces must be even with no defects or tripping hazards, fixtures and fittings must be safe, ensuring nothing can fall off or break away whilst your using it, and the condition of the building itself must not pose a hazard to anyone.

Your landlord should regularly inspect and maintain the premises to ensure there are no potential hazards, and they should always act on any hazard being raised with them as a matter of urgency. If a resident reports that a drain is blocked and water is accumulating in a communal walkway and causing a potential slip hazard, they should get out immediately and either repair or make safe the area, cordon it off if required, or warn anyone using the walkway with appropriate signage.
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I don’t know whether it’s just me, and that I have a particularly impressive ability to find stories about holiday illness, or whether it is more that recently there seems to have been quite a few ‘holidays from hell’.  A lot of the news articles I have flicked through have seen high numbers of tourists win compensation for the bugs they have caught whilst on holiday.  For instance, the Daily Mail has today run a story which involves 138 people who have won compensation from their tour operator having contracted illness whilst on holiday in Bulgaria.

The Daily Mail reports that these 138 tourists had to put up with poor food hygiene, rooms with frogs, could not flush their toilets, were unable to wash, had to go without electricity and water for a few days, and travel through mud to reach reception.  As such the tourists began to complain of things like sickness, diarrhoea, and stomach cramps.  In a recent judgment, those affected have been awarded compensation; the level of which each person is to receive is still to be decided.  However, in the meantime, a £300,000 interim payment has been raised to help those who suffered illness whilst on this holiday.

As the victim’s legal representatives suggest, ‘What our clients experienced…was simply unacceptable…Many of those who became ill have gone on to suffer years of pain and torment, all of which could have been avoided had Thomson and the management of the hotel acted reasonably and put their clients’ safety first.’  And they are exactly right!  Your tour operator has a duty of care to its customers to ensure your health and safety whilst on holiday.  If there is an outbreak of sickness at your accommodation, your tour operator must ensure that you are aware of this and provide you with advice as to how to deal with this.  Your tour operator must also make sure that your hotel is up to standard.  For example, the sanitary conditions must not put you at risk.
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There seems to be more people on the roads than ever before – we always seem to be stuck in a jam whether it’s on our way to work, coming home from work, completing the school runs, or simply going to the shops on a Saturday.  Not only this, but people’s lives in general are more chaotic and busier than ever before; they always have places to be and people to see. These facts put together mean that the roads are more clogged with people who may have too much on their mind and may not paying the necessary care and attention to the road – this in turn causes accidents.

Many of our clients that have been in accidents that were not their fault have successfully made claims for compensation with many of them suffering from whiplash as a result of the accident.

Whiplash is caused by a sudden jolting to the neck – as caused in situations such as road traffic accidents; however, it can also be caused by other events such as falling from a height. This sudden jolting causes the neck to move beyond its normal range of movement: thus causing damage. 
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You may think you know what no win no fee means as we hear the term a lot nowadays – whether it be on a television advert, radio advert, or from marketing people stopping you on the street asking whether you have had a slip or trip.  The term ‘no win no fee’ may sound fairly simplistic and ‘does what it says on the tin’; but behind this term there may be risks to you.  This is why at The Injury Lawyers we like to write these blogs in order to inform and help you make an educated decision as to which law firm is right for you to instruct.

When you instruct a solicitor to take your case on a no win no fee basis they may want you to agree to a no win no fee agreement otherwise known as a Conditional Fee Agreement. These agreements, depending on the solicitor, may be fairly lengthy documents containing a lot of small print; therefore it may be a temptation to simply trust your solicitor and not fully read the document. I must stress how bad this is – whatever the document, you should always read it through thoroughly before agreeing to it.

At The Injury lawyers we are always surprised by some of the agreements which clients who have transferred to us from another firm have agreed to. Some agreements place the client at a high risk of having to pay solicitors costs. When I say costs, this means the cost of the time the solicitor has spent on your claim – this can run into thousands of pounds.
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Road Traffic Accidents – the motorway

Motorways – some people love motorway driving, whilst others avoid it at all costs. People may enjoy motorway driving as it gets you where you want to be quicker, whilst (mostly) avoiding traffic and traffic lights. Others may dread motorway driving as it needs a certain level of heightened skill, confidence, and concentration – with travelling at such high speeds you cannot afford to lose concentration for a second, and this can make many people nervous of it.  I personally used to always set the sat nav to ‘avoid motorways’ however currently driving to work I cannot go by any other route (that will not take me hours).  Due to this I have gained experience in motorway driving and have come to enjoy it.  Whatever your feelings on the motorway, it would be the last thought on your mind that you would have an accident that was not your fault.

If you have had an accident on the motorway and it was not your fault then you may have a claim for compensation.  Accidents on the motorway can be due to people not maintaining the necessary care and attention which is needed even more so for this type of driving. Accidents on a motorway can occur for a number of reasons as listed below, I have listed two of the main ones below:

Not leaving space: Many accidents occur on the motorway as cars are simply driving too closely together. Going at such high speeds, if/when there is a queue ahead or someone breaks suddenly there is no time to stop before hitting the car in front.  Accidents such as these have a heightened occurrence at motorway junctions where, at times of peak traffic, queues can back up and cause collisions. Some motorways have the chevron markings on the road and advise to cars to keep a certain number of chevrons distance from the car in front. If you are hit from behind whilst on the motorway, or any road, the chance, you are pretty much guaranteed a successful claim.
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Apparently we are all making claims for compensation.  As soon as the slightest thing happens to us we want to be compensated.  In fact, the situation has got so bad that no-one dare let us do anything now in case we get the smallest of ‘injuries’ and put in a claim.  Worse still, apparently people are getting compensation without having to prove any wrong-doing on the other sides’ part or with the flimsiest of evidence.  And this is all because lawyers keep telling us to make claims on a ‘No Win No Fee’ basis.  Well, that is what the media would have us believe at least.  So are we gripped in a ‘compensation culture’ that is worsening the society we live in?

I would say definitely not.  You simply cannot be compensated unless you have a real injury, and this was caused by someone else’s negligence.  Certainly, if you are making a claim for compensation owing to a personal injury, you will need evidence, such as a medical report, to support your injury.  And even then, you (well, your lawyers) will need to demonstrate that you were injured because of someone else’s negligent action(s).

And further, what would a lawyer get from taking on a claim that will never succeed on a ‘No Win, No Fee’ basis?  If you do not win your claim they do not get paid.  And how is a lawyer going to get paid for winning your case, if your injury is not real and you and was not caused by the fault of a negligent third party?  Here at The Injury Lawyers we work on a Genuine No Win, No Fee which means that we never charge you – ever!  That means there would be absolutely nothing in it for us at all to take on a claim that has no chance of succeeding.  We would therefore never encourage this.
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