Blog

Fri, 26 Feb 2010

Blame Culture?

There was a very interesting television programme broadcast on Channel 4 on Thursday 25 February 2010 entitled “Scams, Claims and Compensation Games”. It was a documentary about the litigation culture in this country with particular focus on personal injury claims.

For those of us who deal with personal injury claims from the defendant side, it will not have come as a surprise to see a prevailing attitude that where a person has had an accident, no matter how trivial, there has to be someone else to blame for it and pay for it. Whilst a large number of these claims themselves are fairly minimal in value, the collective effect of them is huge especially when combined with the claimant’s legal costs under a “no win – no fee” arrangement It is the insurance industry and, ultimately, the taxpayer who is funding these claims.

This is a serious problem which needs addressing and we, therefore welcome some of the reforms proposed by Lord Justice Jackson in his final report on civil litigation costs (published 14 January 2010) If brought into force, we will see a widening of the fixed costs regime for personal injury claims and a cessation of the right of claimants to recover success fees and after the event insurance premiums from an unsuccessful defendant.

In the meantime, to anyone facing a personal injury claim, we encourage active and early investigation together with creative use of the English civil procedure rules to weed out those unmeritorious cases.

At Myton Law we have a team of highly skilled personal injury lawyers who have considerable experience of investigating and handling accident claims. We are always available to assist and advise clients on the sort of evidence and documentation that should be obtained to maximise the prospects of successfully resisting claims. We offer a fixed fee investigation service as well as a fixed fee advice service which will be of interest to clients who want to contain their own costs exposure. For more information on our fixed fee initiatives or the potential impact of Lord Justice Jackson’s report please contact Scott Yates.

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