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As soon as you start your new job, the duty of care that your employer owes to all of their employees starts immediately. There is no honeymoon period or anything like that – the duty starts from the first second you start working for them. This fact can lead to a lot of accidents at work.

The duty is on your employer to ensure that any task you are requested to do will be able to be carried out in a safe way. So if the task at hand requires you to be trained, your employer is responsible for the training. Let’s look at a few examples:

Manual Handling – if you are instructed to undertake any manual handling activities and your new employer has not yet trained you, if you sustain injury because of the lack of training, you may have a claim for compensation against them.
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Most accidents that occur on or after 31^st July 2013 will be pursued under a new protocol that differs significantly to the traditional way of pursuing these claims to put them more in line with the Road Traffic Accident Protocol system. Essentially, most claims against employers or in public places like shops, restaurants, or out on the highway will now be pursued using a portal system similar to that of road accidents.

So what does this mean for people wanting to make a claim for personal injury compensation?

Well the idea behind the system is that claims are settled much quicker without the need for lengthy litigation and without the need for solicitor costs for letters and telephone calls. The whole portal system means that information is shared between parties electronically. In line with this system, legal fees that law firms receive have been dramatically, and I mean dramatically, cut. In fact, the fees we receive now could potentially lead to poor levels of service from many firms (not us! Read on for more info!)
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Most law firms are now charging up to 25% for you to make a claim for an accident at work. This is due to recent legal fee changes that mean lawyers can no longer recover all of their legal fees from the other side.

Before the changes in April, things were a lot more straight forward – lawyers could recover all legal fees from the other side, so most people get 100% of their payout. But since the changes, the recovery of two things have been abolished. One is called a Success Fee, and the other is called an After The Event insurance premium.

The 25% is normally to cover the success fee – and 25% is common because this is the maximum a lawyer can take from a client for the Success Fee. On top of that, a lot of law firms are also asking for payment of the unrecoverable insurance as well.
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Many people at some time in their life have been around stock cages. Anyone who has worked in retail whilst doing their studies, or as a career, will be used to using them on a daily basis. Most places I have worked at and most people I know who have worked with them all suggest the same thing – they can be fairly dangerous pieces of equipment!

Your employer has an important duty to look after your wellbeing, and they therefore have a duty to ensure that you must adhere to a safe system of work. If an unsafe system of work is adopted, and you are injured as a result, there may be a claim for compensation to answer for. When it comes to dangerously stacked stock cages, it commonly comes down to one of a few scenarios:
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Some people are under the impression that the famous No Win, No Fee has been abolished. This isn’t true; but I will explain why some people may be under the impression that it has been stopped.

April 2013 saw the biggest shakeup in years of the personal injury world as the recoverability of certain legal fees has been stopped. This means that most law firms are no longer offering 100% compensation. Before the changes, most law firms for the majority of cases had 100% agreements because lawyers were entitled to recover all reasonable fees directly from the other side.  Since the changes, this is no longer the case.

From April 2013, any agreements entered in to mean that the lawyer for the majority of cases cannot recover a Success Fee of an After The Event insurance premium. The Success Fee is part of our costs that helps us to fund No Win, No Fee claims – as we cannot win them all. The insurance premium (abbreviation ATE) is to protect you against having to pay for certain costs, like the opponents costs if something goes south for example.
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Unless you have been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault, you’re likely to have the opinion that making a claim for personal injury compensation is somewhat of a joke, and perhaps even immoral. Personal injury is looked upon fairly negatively as people assume that victims of negligence are just milking the system and taking what they can from insurers.

Whilst I’m not going to go too much in to the ethics of making a claim, I will give you a few reasons as to why you should consider making a claim…

It’s just an insurance claim!

Insurance is there to cover people for eventualities when money is owed to someone. When you make a claim for personal injury compensation, in the vast majority of circumstances you are simply claiming money from insurance that exists to cover you for such eventualities. You are covered by someone else’s car insurance if they knock in to you. You are covered by your employers’ insurance. if you are injured at work in a none fault accident. The same applies for visiting a shop, or a cafe.
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I will keep the content of this article general, because different firms work in different ways. So generally speaking, a No Win, No Fee agreement is a contract between a solicitor and a client that normally means the client is not charged in the event their case loses.

So how can we offer to do this? Who pays us if we lose? Well, nobody pays us if we lose. It’s No Win, No Fee, so we won’t be looking to come to you for fees. But it’s not some big secret or trick as to how we can offer the No Win, No Fee agreement. Really it’s all about our perception of the risk of your case.

We will assess your claim and we will make an informed decision as to whether we think we can win the case or not. If we feel there are good prospects that the case will win, we might be able to offer the No Win, No Fee guarantee. If we feel the risks of the case outweigh the benefits of trying to pursue it, we may not offer a No Win, No Fee agreement.
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We recently did an article on the clampdowns being faced by claims management companies. The changes that will affect thousands of firms have hit the news as well recently. I’ll come on to a little something about the story being in the news shortly, but for now let’s stick to the main point of the article – why avoid claims management firms?

They’re Just Middlemen…

Well firstly, they are just that – middlemen. They don’t add any value to the claim by simply giving you an idea as to whether you have a claim and then passing it to a law firm for assessment. Really it just delays the process. Speaking to a law firm directly like us means there are no middlemen involved – we can normally tell you on the first call whether you have a claim, and then it’s actually us that represent you.
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Motorcycle accidents will often result in fairly serious injuries being sustained by the rider. We’re more than used to dealing with the devastating effects of these types of accident as we actually specialise in representing victims making a claim after a motorbike accident. From the first day when we speak to you or see you at home or hospital, to the day we settle the claim, we’re here every step of the way.

So I thought I’d write a little blog about contributory negligence in motorbike personal injury compensation claims.

Contributory negligence is an allegation from the defending side of a claim that you are partly responsible for the accident or your injuries. By this point, they will normally have admitted liability, but will be suggesting that they are perhaps 80% to blame and you are 20% to blame. As such, any compensation you receive will be reduced by the percentage of blame that is apportioned to you.
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A lot of people know their rights when it comes to making a claim for personal injury compensation for an accident at work. But some people are a little unsure about their rights if they work part time. Do you still have the same rights as a part time worker or casual worker?

The short answer is yes – you, as a part time employee of the employer, are still covered by all of the workplace regulations that cover full time employees as well. The regulations are there for anyone who works directly for the employer. Even if you work just one day a week, there is the same duty on your employer to make sure that you are not injured at work. The same duty at work applies.
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