A hotel in Yorkshire has been forced to temporarily close after staff were found to be suffering from a stomach infection.

According to the BBC, the Middlethorpe Hall Hotel closed on Sunday when as many as 20 staff reported feeling unwell. The staff are all currently being tested to see whether they have been affected by the norovirus illness. It is not known whether any customers at the hotel suffered illness and the decision to close the hotel temporarily has been acknowledged to be a preventative decision made in the interests of staff and customers.
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Here at The Injury Lawyers, with our many years of successful personal injury cases behind us, we have seen such a variety of ways in which people have been injured in an accident that want their fault. And unfortunately there are still so many ways in which we just cannot tell what is round the corner, just waiting to trip us up; Or worse…

The Mirror.co.uk have reported of the amazing story of the critically injured truck driver impaled on a concealed pole (source).

Jason Ripley was delivering timber to an industrial estate and luckily driving slowly when the 8ft pole concealed by overgrown bushes bounced of the bonnet of the vehicle he was travelling in and smashed through the window before spearing his chest.
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About 60 people suffered injury at a Christmas lights switch-on event in Birmingham.

According to the BBC, over 20,000 people went to Millennium Point in Birmingham to watch boy band, and X-Factor runners-up, JLS switch on the Christmas lights on Saturday.

However, organisers had only anticipated a quarter of that attendance, with just 15,000 being expected to turn up and see the event.

The event had to be stopped after the crowd surged to get in to the already packed square. Barriers gave way leaving four people in need of hospital treatment.
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What do you guys think; should advertising “no win, no fee” guarantees be banned?

Seems pretty extreme but it is a view which has been taken in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia!

The so called ‘ambulance chasers’ have been banned from advertising their services and it is a ban that Attorney-General John Hatzistergos is campaigning to have blanketed across Australia.
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The CICA (Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority) payout compensation to the victims of premeditated assaults and attacks construed as criminal activity.

The CICA as a government related body are strict on the cases they payout for. The BBC have reported of a rather unique case where the judge has awarded favour to the toddler who was attacked by another three year old boy whilst alone in a car (source).

Jay Jones was hit 11 times with a car jack by another three year old boy whilst they were alone in a car, resulting in the boy requiring stitches from a gash on the head and a visit to the nearby hospital for treatment following the attack in 2007.
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Maclaren have moved to provide new safety kits for their pushchairs after parents indicated their concerns that children were suffering injuries trapping their fingers in the hinges.

According to the BBC, the company had originally stated that despite issuing the kits in the US, they would not be following suit with a UK equivalent.  However, now the covers, which will be free, will be sent out to parents who request them.

Maclaren’s original decision was based on the fact that the number of injuries suffered in the UK was considerably lower than in the US.
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Two firemen killed by a blast at a fireworks depot might not have died if they had received relevant training, a jury has heard.

According to the BBC, firemen Geoff Wicker and Brian Wembridge died in an explosion at a farm in East Sussex in December 2006. The argument that the training received by the fire-fighters was insufficient was put forward by the defence lawyer for Alpha Fireworks boss Martin Winter and his son Nathan, both of whom denied the charge of manslaughter at Lewes Crown Court.
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Medical negligence legal cases can range from procedural errors causing minor suffering to very severe (sadly, even fatal) outcomes. It’s the reason why all health staff are required to be proficiently trained to prevent mistakes from occurring.

And you wouldn’t think that a comparatively straight forward dental procedure could lead to a £2.5m law suit …
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Personal injury claims aren’t just about victims of accidents arising from negligence recovering the compensation they are entitled to for physical injuries sustained. In fact, there are more often than not psychological “injuries” sustained that can be included as part of the claim.

A big example is road traffic accidents. Past cases have shown that a lot of the victims we have represented have suffered psychologically as a result of the accident. Many people involved in a car accident suffer from initial shock and travel anxiety thereafter; these are elements taken in to account when it comes to valuating a claim for compensation.
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The Highways Agency has come in for criticism and faces legal action for failing in its obligations to road users in Cornwall. Although the Agency closed the A30 road between Devon and Cornwall following sheet ice in January of this year, but not before 40 accidents has already occurred.

The allegations put forward are that the Highways Agency, in failing to identify that the particular stretch of road would become dangerous at an earlier stage, fell below the standards expected of it to keep roads clear as much as reasonably practicable. This involves keeping roads free of snow and ice in so much as they might avoid endangering the safety of users or, alternately, acting to minimise the risk through actions such as closing the section of road.
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