Archives
Personal Injury Claims – Defective Manhole Cover on Own Property
I’m not kidding when I tell you that it’s genuinely quite scary that we take on such a huge volume of claims for personal injury compensation caused by people falling and tripping on defective or missing manhole covers. Personally I don’t walk over them in the street. I’m not superstitious – I’ve just seen the extent of the damage that can be caused.
If you are injured because of a missing or defective manhole cover, you may be entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation. But what about if the manhole cover is on your own property? Can you still make a claim? It all comes down to the circumstances, notice to those responsible, and the duty that is in place to make sure the area is safe.
Rented Property
Starting with a rented property, it’s normally the case that the duty to ensure that the cover is safe will fall with your landlord. They normally have the overriding duty to make sure that the premises is, from a structural perspective, safe to use. So if you injured yourself due to a defective or missing manhole cover on a rented property, you will normally pursue your landlord.
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Getting Calls asking to Make a Claim? Injury Lawyers Advice
Even if you have been lucky enough to never have been involved in an accident, you might still get calls and texts from companies claiming that they have now valued your claim and they can tell you exactly how much your claim is worth. But it’s generally worse after you have had an accident because somehow your information gets passed around.
It’s a lucrative business and there are claims management firms and lawyers out there who will not leave you alone until you use their services. They will call, and call, and call, and call, and call, and call etc. Our advice about this is simple – don’t panic, and just ignore them, and block their numbers.
How they get your information
It can be from anywhere. You may have used an online calculator to see how much your claim is worth. All it takes is a name and a phone number and you’re on their system. Perhaps you called a company to ask for some advice and they traced your number and they have passed your details around as well.
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Roll Cage Injury Claims in Supermarkets Accidents
I’m going to split this one in to two parts – the first is if you are an employee who has been injured by a roll cage when working in a supermarket, and the second is if you are a customer injured by a roll cage in a supermarket.
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Making a Claim for Personal Injury Compensation – Don’t Get Mugged by the Insurers!
When it comes to settling your claim for personal injury compensation, there are always two pieces of vital advice that we give to people:
1: Dealing with the insurers directly is dangerous and you risk under settling your claim.
2: The first offer that the insurers make will almost certainly be less than what you are owed.
Insurers are, ultimately, private profit making organisations whose duty is to their shareholders. To keep their shareholders happy, they must keep their profit margins high to allow their shareholders to get a good return on their investment. To maintain high profit margins, they have to keep costs down. And the way they keep costs down is by keeping payout amounts to a minimum.
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100% Compensation for Slips and Trips!
April saw the biggest shakeup in the personal injury claiming world when the government in their absolute and infinite wisdom decided to attack access to justice by making certain things unrecoverable from the other side. The result is that most other law firms are now charging clients a huge percentage of their compensation if the claim succeeds.
In addition to this, most slip and trip accident claims that occur on or after 31st July 2013 will be pursued under a new protocol which is similar to the one used for road accident claims. This new protocol is designed for speed and efficiency for claiming, but the government have fixed the fees at such a low rate that it again hampers the quality of legal services that other law firms can offer unless charges are made to clients.
So we are now in a situation where the innocent victims who have been injured through no fault of their own, but through the negligence of someone else, are having to pay to make a claim! The whole idea behind claiming is to put the victim back in a pre-accident position; losing money doesn’t do that.
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Foot run over by a Forklift Truck at Work Injury Claims
Accidents in warehouses, where forklift trucks are common, are fairly frequent and we deal with quite a large volume of claims for personal injury compensation from employers insurance after an accident at work. When it comes to forklift truck accidents, one of the most common ones is getting your foot run over by a colleague. It can be easily done.
So if you have had your foot run over by a colleague at work because they were not paying attention or were perhaps travelling too fast, what are your rights for making a personal injury compensation claim? Are you covered, and what can you claim for?
You have a good claim
First things first, prospects wise you have a fairly decent chance at winning the claim. If a colleague is negligent and causes an injury to a co-worker, you can make a claim from your employers insurance under the scope of vicarious liability. Vicarious liability simply means that the negligence of a co-worker falls on your employer. So you don’t need to worry about suing your mate at work because your employers insurance will cover you.
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No Training at New Job – Injury Lawyers Advice
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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The New Employers Liability and Public Liability Protocol System – 100% Compensation!
Most accidents that occur on or after 31st 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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100% Compensation for Accidents at Work
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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Dangerously Stacked Stock Cages Injury Claims
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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