If you have been involved in a slip, trip, or fall accident, and this accident was due to the negligence of another, you may have a strong claim for personal injury. At The Injury Lawyers we tend to see these types of claims originate from supermarkets, shopping malls and high streets – I have gone on to list some specific examples of accidents we see below:
- Slipping on a spillage negligently left uncleaned in a supermarket.
- Tripping on broken paving on the pavement.
- Falling down an uncovered manhole on the street, or the manhole having no adequate warning signs or cordons.
- Tripping over a raised or unsecured utility cover.
If any of the above have happened to you then you may have a strong claim for personal injury. If this is the case then there are a few actions which you can take to strengthen your position: I have listed some of these below:
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Compensation is meant to put you back in the position you would have been in had the accident never have occurred. This means that, not only do you receive compensation for your pain, suffering, and loss of amenity – e.g. unable to complete hobbies or continue with your social life as normal – but that you can also claim compensation for the financial losses you have suffered as a result of your accident as well.
A good personal injury lawyer will advise you regarding losses right from the outset of your claim, so these can be kept a note of and evidence such as receipts and wage slips can be retained in a safe place. Once your losses are collated they are drafted into a document known as a Schedule of Loss. Your losses are dealt with separately to the claim for your injuries, therefore the Schedule of Loss would not contain a provision for your injury compensation. Injury compensation is a point of negotiation; losses can also be a negotiation process as you do not always get 100% of what you claim for, but the amount you are claiming is generally quantifiable.
I have listed some of the more common types of losses below:
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If you have been injured as a result of a faulty/contaminated product, you would bring your claim as a Product Liability Claim. I will discuss two common types of Product Liability below:
Faulty Products
The first point to make is that Product Liability claims can be difficult claims to run and difficult to be successful with. This is firstly due to the fact that the claim can go between the sellers and the manufacturers as to who is to blame, and secondly manufacturers of products can be difficult to locate; so this can be an added struggle.
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Depending on our work places, there are many different hazards which can be contained within it. It is the duty of our employer to ensure that we are protected as far as is reasonably possible from harm. This duty is enshrined in many different pieces of legislation and regulations which will not be the focus of this blog – I will however discuss below some of the main reasons why accidents can occur around the work place.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – PPE is an umbrella term for a variety of equipment which protects you from risks to your health and safety. This equipment can include safety goggles, respirators, and safety boots – basically whatever is required to keep you safe from the necessary risks of your job. You should be adequately trained in the use of the PPE and it should be properly maintained and stored to ensure it offers you the fullest protection.
- Manual Handling – If your work requires you to complete manual handling tasks you should be trained in how to complete these tasks safely. Your employer should also be assessing any potentially hazardous manual handling tasks to see if they can be adapted, or if mechanical assistance can be provided.
- General workplace safety – Employers should ensure that the workplace is generally a safe area to work within. Obvious examples of this should be safe electrics with no exposed wiring, no trip or slip hazards as far as is reasonably possible, and no faulty equipment which could cause harm.
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Many people can find roundabouts difficult to navigate. This is usually because the person may not know exactly where they are going and which exit off the roundabout to take – this can cause accidents and thus cause roundabouts to be one of the biggest accident hotspots.
I have listed below some of the most common reasons for accidents occurring on a roundabout:
- Negligent drivers cutting across lanes to take their exit, thus causing panic in other drivers as well as collisions.
- Negligent drivers not taking heed of traffic coming to a stop in front of them, causing a rear end shunt at the entrance to the roundabout.
- Negligent drivers entering a roundabout without making the necessary checks that the path ahead of them is clear, thus causing a collision.
- Negligent drivers not giving priority to traffic entering the roundabout to the right of them, thus causing a collision
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The term Occupier’s Liability may sound complex, but its meaning is fairly simple to explain. There are two Occupier’s Liability Acts; the one relevant for our discussions in this blog is the Occupier’s Liability Act 1957. It is this act which offers protection to the ‘lawful visitors’ of premises rather than trespassers with which the other Act deals. The act states that the Occupier has a duty to ensure its visitors will be reasonably safe when visiting its premises. Contrary to how the name sounds an Occupier need not actually occupy the premises as such; an occupier is simply the person(s) who have overall physical control over the premises. A good way to illustrate this is with the following examples of Occupier’s liablity claims:
- An item falling on you from a poorly stacked shelf in a supermarket – this may be a strong claim for personal injury and would be directed against the supermarket.
- Slipping on a spillage in a night club – if you have been injured as a result, this too may be a claim and would be directed against the nightclub.
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What is Personal Protective Equipment?
Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE as it is more commonly known, is equipment which can be used or worn to protect you from risks to your health and safety. PPE can come in all shapes and sizes, and so can be anything from safety boots, to ear defenders, to anti vibration gloves.
What are your employer’s duties?
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At The Injury Lawyers we have a vast amount of experience in whiplash claiming, and so are fully aware of the debilitating effect it can have on a person’s life. That is why we treat the condition with the seriousness that it deserves, fighting tooth and nail to get our client’s the best possible amount of compensation they are entitled to receive.
Causes
At The Injury Lawyers we tend to see whiplash most commonly as a result of road traffic accidents as the injury is commonly caused through a jolt to the head / neck area. It is common for people not to report injury at the scene of an accident, but to suffer whiplash later on as the symptoms, which I will discuss below, usually become apparent a few hours later, or even the following day or sometimes longer.
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At The Injury Lawyers we have a great deal of experience in road traffic accident claiming. For clients that have suffered an accident after 30th April 2010 and whose claim is within a certain value, we are pleased to inform them that their claim can be run through a fast track system that can be much quicker than other common compensation claims.
The Process…
This fast track system is begun by completing a Claim Notification Form. This form is the first correspondence the other side will receive on your claim and sets out the accident circumstances in full, together with the necessary information required for your case to be investigated thoroughly. Once this is completed, it is submitted via an electronic portal over the internet, which means that all correspondence is sent and received simultaneously, therefore making the claiming process much faster and more streamlined. After this is submitted, the other side have one business day to acknowledge the claim, and 15 business days to provide their response regarding liability. This is in stark contrast to the system of old which allowed the other side nearly 4 months to respond.
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Whiplash can be experienced very mildly or extremely severely, and so can have little effect on your life or an extremely debilitating effect on your life. This is why valuing a claim for whiplash can be difficult; some sufferers can recover from the condition in a matter of weeks, whereas others can suffer for months or years. As you will probably have gathered, there will be extremely different valuations placed on the two extremes I have just outlined above, and the point of this blog is to let you know how solicitors come up with these valuations for your claim.
A solicitor will use a wide range of tools to value your claim – I have set these out below:
- Judicial Studies Board Guidelines: The JSB guidelines band neck injuries for the purposes of valuations – I have set out these bands below;
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