Despite what insurance companies tell people, they are there to save money – not pay out as much as possible. I can say this with a huge degree of confidence because I see it in action everyday here at The Injury Lawyers HQ and I’ve seen some of the absolutely appalling offers insurers try and fob people off with.

If you are dealing with the insurers directly, and you are looking for some guidelines valuations, I will give you a few breakdowns later on in the blog but heed this massive warning – dealing with the insurers is not a clever way to settle your claim. Yes, you may be able to settle it quicker, but it’s highly likely you are in serious danger of under settling the claim. If I had a pound for every time people had settled directly and then come to a lawyer for help because they feel they’ve under settled, I’d be writing blogs about my worldwide travel escapades on the back of a 164ft yacht.

So what is the maximum whiplash compensation you can get? Is there an upper limit? How much is your claim worth? How much is the average whiplash compensation claim worth? This isn’t something that you can easily estimate…
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According to Wikipedia: Plastic Surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the “correction” or restoration of form and function.

It is something that is always in the news; including very recently with Jackie Stallone speaking out about her regrets on having plastic surgery after suffering from her 3^rd heart attack. But Jackie is if course not the only one that has fallen foul to the scalpel; other famous figures such as Michael Jackson, Pamela Anderson and David Guest are all examples of what plastic surgery can do. In recent years however, it seems that plastic surgery is no longer just something that the rich and famous pay for with many people now undergoing the knife to achieve the look they have always desired;  For example, in 2010 a total of 38,274 cosmetic procedures were carried out in the UK, compared with 10,700 in 2003 (source).

However, unfortunately not all of these procedures go the way the patient thought it would when they paid for the procedure, with negligence unfortunately happening in some.
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If you have been involved in a road traffic accident whereby the vehicle in which you were driving or travelling in was hit from the side, have you considered your eligibility to make a personal injury claim?

The basic principle is that, if you have been injured in an accident that was not your fault, then it is likely that you can make a successful claim. If you are a passenger then you cannot (bar exceptional circumstances) be at fault for causing or contributing to the accident. However an issue can arise as to who the claim is actually against. Say for example you were a passenger in a car which your friend was driving. You may think the claim would not be against your friend but would be against the driver of the other vehicle who collided into the side of the vehicle that you were a passenger in. Ordinarily this would be correct. However if during liability investigations it is found that the driver of the vehicle in which you were a passenger in (i.e. your friend) is at fault then the claim would be against them. This can cause an obstacle as people are naturally concerned about claiming against friends etc.
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Since legal reforms came in to place on April 1^st of this year, the whole personal injury legal system has been shaken to the core with most law firms now charging clients up to 25% of their compensation and asking them to pay for an insurance premium after our genius government changed the law so lawyers can no longer recover all fees from the other side.

Before April, we had, in my opinion, a nice and fair system – you make a claim for negligence, and the other side pays for your legal fees because it’s not your fault that you were injured and it’s not your fault you need to make a claim as a result. But our current government, in all of their infinite wisdom, essentially decided that victims should pay. That’s why lawyers can no longer recover a Success Fee, which is a part of our fees that help us to fund the risk of taking cases on on a No Win, No Fee basis, and an After The Event insurance premium which is for insurance to protect you against costs from the other side or from having to pay unrecoverable disbursements.
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As specialist injury lawyers, we deal with all types of compensation claims, and this includes medical negligence cases. Medical negligence cases require a great deal of experience and expertise to pursue and succeed with, as they are inherently difficult to pursue.

But on occasions, we take on a case that is so blatant when it comes to negligence, and with consequences so horrifying, it puts your whole faith in medical professions to question.

From sources at The Independent, an inquest in to the death of a heavily pregnant woman has brought to light that trainee NHS surgeons removed her ovaries instead of her appendix by mistake. Tragically the woman died within weeks of the operation. The NHS only realised 2 days after her re-admittance to hospital that the wrong organ had been removed.
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If you are asked to move heavy furniture at work, it’s probably going to be quite difficult to move by yourself. Normally help is required to do it safely. But what if you are asked to lift heavy furniture all by yourself?

The applicable law is The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. Regulation 4 (b) states that each employer shall:

(i) make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all such manual handling operations to be undertaken…

(ii) take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to those employees arising out of their undertaking any such manual handling operations to the lowest level reasonably practicable

This puts a duty on your employer to make sure that any manual handling tasks that are done are safe. So if your employer asks you to move heavy furniture and you are injured as a result, they are either failing to properly assess the task, or ignoring the fact that the task is clearly dangerous in the first place.
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We are somewhat of an expert firm of injury lawyers when it comes to breast surgery. We represent a large proportion of the women claiming compensation for the faulty and dangerous PIP breast implants; a scandal which came to light in late 2011. So here is a little advice about the prospect of making a claim when breast surgery has gone wrong.

First things first, cosmetic compensation claims are not always easy to win. A lot can go wrong with any surgery, particularly surgery as invasive as breast augmentation. When it comes to implants, a foreign body is being put in to your body, and there are always risks associated with this.

So if something has gone wrong, we need to identify the cause and whether the problem has been caused as a result of negligence or an inherent risk.

For example, an infection is a very common inherent risk of most procedures like this. If you suffer from an infection, it can be difficult to claim because it is so common. Nothing much can be done to stop a general infection. So we need to clarify that the problem has been caused as a result of a mistake.
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When we act on your behalf in pursuing a personal injury claim, we aim to recover General Damages (damages for your injury and suffering) and Special Damages (any loss that you have incurred due to the accident). Special Damages can be wide ranging from claiming travel expenses, medical expenses to claiming for damaged clothing, care and assistance, lost earnings etc. In this blog I will attempt to explain how we go about recovering lost earnings after an accident.

We can try and recover lost earnings if you have been injured in an accident and as a result you were not able to work and you lost earnings as a result. We can even claim for loss of overtime pay if we can prove that you worked overtime before the accident but were not able to after the accident. As I say, Special Damages are wide ranging. The most important aspect of any Special Damages claim is providing documentary proof/evidence that the loss actually occurred.

In terms of lost earnings we would ask you to send in pay slips for a number of months prior to the accident. We would also request pay slips for the period following the accident (if applicable). If you have sustained a loss of earnings then the pay slips should show this. Perhaps you can only work reduced hours after the accident, your earnings would be down and we can seek to recover the difference. If your wage is not set (i.e. you receive a different amount of pay each week or month) then we can calculate your average pay for say the 6 month period before the accident. We can use the average pay figure to calculate your loss after the accident.
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As our name kind of infers, we deal only with claims for personal injury. But we don’t just deal with road accidents and workplace claims, we have specialist lawyers for medical negligence cases, and we have been taking on large volumes of claims for cosmetic surgery negligence over the last few years.

If you have had cosmetic surgery and something has gone wrong, can we help you out on a No Win No Fee basis?

Our No Win No Fee does exactly what it says on the tin. If we are confident that we can win your case, we can agree to represent you on a No Win No Fee basis. Normally this means that we are confident that we can win the case to the extent that we are willing to waive our legal fees in the event the case doesn’t win. If it doesn’t win, our legal fees are of course not recoverable from the other side. Yes, we incur a loss – but it is our decision as to whether we will work for you on a No Win No Fee basis or not.
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Liposculpture involves using ultrasound to break down fat before removal, and/or surgery to remove fat where it is excessive and potentially add it to other areas of the body with the aim to get a better shape. It is in many ways a form of liposuction.

In a world where appearance is everything, it isn’t surprising that many people now turn to cosmetic surgery to improve their appearance. The industry is worth a lot of money as people are willing to pay thousands and thousands of pounds to look as good as they possibly can.

As a leading law firm in the battle for PIP breast implant compensation, we know all too well that the industry in the UK is poorly regulated and procedures are on the rise. It’s therefore no surprise to our clinical negligence lawyers here at The Injury Lawyers to see an increase in the amount of people asking for our help to make a claim for compensation when things go wrong.
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