Are you looking to make a claim for personal injury compensation? Where you expecting to get 100% of your payout, only to find lawyers are now talking about taking up to 25% from your payout instead? Or have you just got some paperwork through from a firm who neglected to mention that up to a quarter of your compensation will be swallowed up by them in legal fees?

The reason for the sudden U-turn in lawyers offering 100% compensation is because the government has changed the law on April 2013.

Many law firms are misadvising people because they don’t understand the changes. Some are potentially misleading people with offers like “100% No Win, No Fee” which isn’t actually confirming you will receive 100% of your compensation.
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Normally when a ride goes wrong people end up claiming for a whiplash type injury for a sudden stop or if the ride breaks mid-use and traps people upside down for a while. But according to sources from the BBC, Alton Towers’ brand new £18m Smiler ride has been shut down after wheels fell off and hit four people in the front carriage (source)!

One rider who was hit by debris from the cascading ‘guide wheels’ described the experience as “pretty frightening“. He went on to say “you are at the highest point of the ride and you’ve got all these loops to do and you just think that the carriage is going to come off.”
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Firstly, this is not one of those offers where we give you extra money which basically comes out of the running costs for your claim; leaving you with a potentially rubbish service! In fact, our 110% compensation for you pledge is because of law changes that have increased the general amount of compensation you can recover by 10%.

The Changes

In April 2013, the government stopped lawyers being able to recover all of their fees from the other side. They stopped us recovering a Success Fee and an After The Event insurance premium.
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Building sites are dangerous places; so making sure that health and safety is done right is of paramount importance. That’s why there are usually specific routes for pedestrians or workers to use when navigating a building site, and these are often referred to as Green Routes.

There should, in theory, be no danger to a person correctly using a green route on a building site. But that doesn’t mean that rules will not be broken, or people will fail to follow procedure.
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We recently did a blog about the duties owed by employers when it comes to the effectiveness and suitability of work equipment like roll cages and trolleys, and it’s something we have covered in the past as well. But as a firm of specialist injury lawyers who only represent victims for compensation claims, we’re used to winning all sorts of accidents that occur from a wide range of scenarios.

So here is an article about being injured due to a roll cage or trolley not because it is defective or unsuitable, but because of uneven ground.
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On occasions, the only way an employer could reasonably have known about a health and safety hazard is if someone reports it to them. But what happens if a problem is reported and nothing is done about it? Let’s say a leak is reported and not resolved? Or a loose step is reported and nothing is done about it? If someone has an accident involving a reported hazard, can a claim be made?

Reasonable Notice

The fact that the matter had been reported should act as reasonable notice of a problem. As such, the employer is duty bound to do all in their power to either rectify or make safe the issue as soon as possible. So in failing to act, they can be negligent if someone has an accident.
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We take on a fair volume of claims for personal injury compensation when people are injured by roll cages. So let’s take a look at the law and how it can apply to see if you can make a claim from your employers insurance if you are injured as a result of a defective or dangerous roll cages.

The Law

A roll cage will be classed as work equipment and is therefore subject to The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. The two important key elements of this legislation are to do with suitability and maintenance. The key bits read as follows:
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Digging holes and trenches is of course required in many jobs. It’s common in constructions sites for foundations to be laid, walls and fences to be erected, and pipes or cables to be laid in the ground.

Digging itself can involve some hefty manual work; particularly if the ground is fairly solid. It comes as no surprise then that people are liable to injure their back, arms, and / or shoulder areas when they are requested to dig.

So if you are instructed by your employer to dig and you end up injured, is there a duty and can you make a claim for compensation?
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You don’t have to be a driver to be covered by insurance for a claim for personal injury compensation. If you are injured as an innocent passenger in a collision, no matter which vehicle is at fault, you pretty much have a guaranteed claim for compensation.

A collision has occurred, so there is likely someone to blame. Unless you did something daft like pulled on the handbrake or distracted the driver and that caused an accident, you are an innocent party in a collision with an at-fault party. So whether it’s the driver of your vehicle or another vehicle involved, we can definitely make a claim for you.
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Factories are generally hazardous places. With heavy plant, equipment, and machinery in constant operation, health and safety is of paramount importance in factories and those in charge have a number of duties to ensure that employees are not injured in the line of duty.

Whilst most accidents probably involve equipment, slipping on wet floors are common in factories as they are in any other workplaces. Leaks from machinery, whether its oil or water, is an obvious one. People could walk grease and oil around the floor if it sticks to their boots as well. Having boots to try and prevent as much as possible a slipping accident is a point in itself.
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