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What is No Win No Fee? What does it mean? Is it true that it does exactly what it says on the tin? I know it’s a common term nowadays, but do any of you understand what it actually involves?
There are actually multiple answers to this question – but realistically, it all comes down to which lawyer you choose to represent you.
What Happens if You Lose?
If your compensation claim fails to succeed, under a No Win No Fee, you should not be liable for any of your lawyer’s fees. The reason I say should is because there are lawyers out there who are prepared to be sneaky and may try and get something out of you.
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We all use equipment at work – ranging from the trusty pen in the office, to a pneumatic drill on a building site. With any work equipment that is potentially dangerous, there are health and safety rules and regulations that you and your employer need to abide by in order to prevent an accident at work occurring.
If you are injured due to work equipment provided to you by your employer, you may have a claim for compensation.
There are several areas this covers –
- The provision of suitable work equipment where necessary
- The regular inspection and maintenance of work equipment you use – which ranges from handled tools to factory machinery
- The replacement of any outdated or overly used equipment
- Training in how to use work equipment safely
Whiplash can be a nasty injury to suffer with. But it begs the question – can you claim for a whiplash injury? When will you recover? How much are you entitled to claim for?
As a whiplash specialist, I can answer your questions! (well, as best as I can!)
If you are involved in an accident that was not your fault, you can make a whiplash injury claim. Normally, whiplash occurs after a road accident; caused by the sudden jolting of your neck, stretching your valuable body tissue further than its normal range of movement.
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I dodged yet another pothole on the way to work this morning – it’s getting to be rather tedious if I’m honest. OK, so I know the councils budgets are rather stretched thanks to the giant pair of scissors that are David Cameron’s hands; but something needs to be done about it. In fact, if anyone watched Channel 4’s Selling Off Britain on Monday night, you might agree that there is room for a bit of financial redistribution to help us sort out the meteor craters littering our roads.
But – Where does the genuine duty lie? What are the councils and highways authorities responsible to do? You’d be tempted to say “naff all” given the current state of the roads; but there is a duty there. Under the Highways Act 1980, local authorities responsible for the highways have an important duty to ensure that the highway is reasonably and regularly inspected and maintained. What is classed as “reasonable” is largely down to the authorities themselves; they can range from monthly inspections, to three monthly, bi-annually, or even annual only inspections. It’s all about what is deemed to be reasonable and practical.
If a pothole or defect is reported, the rules change a little. The council now must make the area safe – either by reparations or cordoning off of the area etc, as soon as is reasonably possible. Again, that lovely ambiguous word “reasonable” is in there. How this can be measured is hard to tell. At the end of the day, it’s likely the local authority will put forward the “public purse” argument as to why they are not able to satisfy the safety of highway users.
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This is one of the most common questions I hear at The Injury lawyers when speaking to new (and existing) clients. It’s something that most claimers want to know right from the outset of the case.
But unfortunately, answering this question is a little trickier than you might think!
As a pioneer of the online compensation calculators, we know that they can help – but only as a guideline. Ultimately, the information you put in to the calculator dictates its response. The calculator (or at least ours) matches the information you put in to it to something called the JSB (Judicial Studies Board) Guidelines, which are official guidelines we as lawyers and judges at court use to value claims.
To value your claim properly, you need:
- A good quality medical report from a qualified medico-legal expert in the field of your injury (e.g. Orthopaedic for muscular / skeletal, Plastic Surgeon for cuts and burns, Dermatological for skin etc).
- An experienced, fully qualified and specialist personal injury lawyer.
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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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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Claiming for Compensation: Slips and Trips.
A lot of people are concerned and confused when it comes to thinking about making a claim – particularly in accidents involving slips and trips. I suppose the reason is that many people simply aren’t sure whether they can make a claim after being involved in a slip or trip accident. Furthermore, people genuinely feel a little “silly” about making a claim for such a seemingly “small” accident.
It’s better to approach the entire situation in a different way: your slip / trip accident is not in any way “silly” or “small” – particularly if you have been seriously hurt. At the end of the day, if you have been injured due to someone else’s negligence, you have a claim for compensation.
Any shop, restaurant, cafe, bar, club, pub, museum – any premises which you are allowed to freely access – involves a duty of care owed to you by the owners of the place you are in. The premises must be safe to use, and no hazards should be allowed to develop and endanger anyone in the area. It’s an obvious and sensible piece of legislation – without this important duty of care in place, no one would be responsible for preventing anyone from coming to harm.
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Given our extensive experience in dealing with road accident claims successfully, you come to appreciate more and more just how easy it is to end up in an accident. In fact, I personally notice potential hazards on the roads better than I used to having given advice and taken on the claims of countless victims in road accidents.
I also find that the law of averages, for some unknown reason, often applies to any near misses I’m involved in. I recall a few months ago I was almost a victim of 4 road accidents in one week alone! Well, it’s happened again the other day – I had two near misses in just one night, which really shows how easy it is to become a victim of a road accident!
My experiences the other night were, funnily enough, both similar in circumstance; and it got me thinking about an important area of road regulation: Lanes! Unfortunately, it seems there are still some drivers out there that do not appreciate the importance of changing and merging lanes safely:
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There are many questions you might ask when it comes to making a claim for compensation:
- Do I have a claim?
- How much am I entitled to claim for?
- When should I make the claim?
- Who should I instruct to deal with my claim?
There can be many more questions as well – it’s a confusing time after an accident to know exactly what to do. So, here’s a little advice that may just help you out!
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