Personal Injury Litigation at Emmetts Solicitors If you have suffered an injury and someone else is to blame, you are probably already aware that you are entitled to recover compensation. Emmetts Solicitors are established experts in advising clients about their personal injury claims and recovering damages. If you have suffered a personal injury and want a free, no obligation assessment of your claim you can provide details on line: Click here to provide your injury claim details online Claims Management Companies vs Solicitors Claims Management Companies promising that they could recover compensation for injured people became prominent in the late 1990s. Perhaps the highest profile Claims Management Company, The Accident Group, stopped trading amid criticism of their operation and allegations that their clients were having large sums of money taken from their damages. Since then, Claims Management Companies have become regulated, but stories of breaches of regulations and disappointed Claimants continue. Perhaps the most important thing to realise is that Claims Management Companies will not pursue your claim for you at all. They are not allowed to and are not qualified to deal with the case. A Claims Management Company cannot represent you in court if your case progresses to court. As soon as you instruct a Claims Management Company, they will sell your claim to - a firm of solicitors. The firm of solicitors that your claim has been sold to may be in a different area of the company and the experience of the fee earner or fee earners dealing with your claim may vary. Because the solicitor typically has to pay anything between £500.00 and £850.00 to the Claims Management Company, there is an incentive to the solicitors to only conduct easy claims that they know will be successful. Claims Management Companies are therefore little more than marketing companies, advertising for your claim before selling your details on to a firm of solicitors, often based on which firm is prepared to pay for the details rather than any analysis of who is the best firm to deal with the claim. Although regulation will surely help to resolve some of the abuses perpetrated in the past by Claims Management Companies, the question remains: why instruct a Claims Management Company when you can get better service by instructing a solicitor directly? Many solicitors, including Emmetts Solicitors deal with claims on a No Win No Fee Basis, guaranteeing that nothing will be deducted from your damages whether you win or lose your claim. Emmetts Solciitors promise that your claim will be handled at all times by a qualified and experienced solicitor. Click here to provide your injury claim details online What can I claim compensation for? There are two types of compensation you can claim. General damages General damages are for the pain and suffering you have had to cope with after an injury. Special damages and future loss Special damages are for money you’ve had to pay or earnings you have lost because of an accident. You can also claim for loss of future earnings if, for example, your injury means you cannot carry on working in a job or profession you have been working in. And if a member of your family has been killed, you may be able to claim compensation if they supported you. Special damages compensation can also cover: • damage to clothing or other belongings; • the cost of medical treatment; • travel costs to hospital for you and visiting relatives; • ongoing care, therapy or counselling to help you recover from or cope with your injury; and • the cost of hiring a car or repairing the one damaged in an accident. If you need to spend money for things related to your accident or injury, try to keep all your receipts. This will make it easier to claim the money back as part of special damages. What else affects how much compensation I could get? If a court decides you were partly to blame for your injuries, it may reduce the amount of compensation you get (for example, if you were not wearing a seat belt when you had a car accident). This is called ‘contributory negligence’. You may also get less compensation if the other side can prove you did not ‘mitigate’ your losses (that is, you did not do what you could to keep them to a minimum). Our role Emmetts Solicitors can deal with all aspects of personal injury law. We will be with you every step of the way, even up to court proceedings, if the case gets that far. Emmetts will keep you informed of progress and explain, in plain English, what your next step is to be or the options you have. Emmetts Solicitors will strive to get you the maximum amount of compensation you deserve. We have already claimed compensation for 1000’s of client who suffered injury and loss through no fault of their own. We operate on a No Win No Fee basis. Emmetts Solicitors uphold a company policy whereby you, the client, will not have any deductions made from your damages, or have to pay our costs, win or lose. If you win your case, we claim our costs from the other side and you receive 100% of your damages with no deductions. If you lose, you will not have to pay us a penny, guaranteed. Click here to provide your injury claim details online Whose Fault is it Anyway? Emmetts Solicitors - 24/04/2008 One of the main problems with working out who is to blame when an accident occurs on a public road is that the legislation which governs roads requires the relevant authority to ‘maintain’ the highway, but not to take steps to make it safe to use as a road. For example, if there is a reverse camber or blind spot and the authority does nothing, then very probably it will not be regarded as having any legal responsibility for an accident resulting from the defect in the road, even if it fails to erect a warning sign. On the other hand, if for example the authority allows the road to be covered with water or ice, it may well be liable if an accident occurs as a result. However, if the authority can demonstrate that it has taken reasonable steps to deal with the problem – e.g. by salting the roads in a proper and organised way in conditions likely to lead to the formation of ice – it can defend a claim made against it by a person injured as a result of skidding on the ice. For any claim to be successful, the claimant must show that the road was in a condition which made it dangerous for traffic and that the danger was due to a failure to maintain the road. That in turn will depend on whether the failure is a transient failure or a longer-term failure indicative of a breach of the authority’s duty. If the latter, the authority will be liable unless it can demonstrate that it took reasonable care to ensure that the road was ‘reasonably passable for ordinary traffic without danger caused by its physical condition’. In practice, this will turn on the degree to which the authority can demonstrate that it operated well-considered and effective policies on road maintenance. The message for road users is that it is their responsibility to assess the inherent risk in the road and behave accordingly. Only if an accident can be shown to be caused by the failure of the authority to discharge its duty to maintain the road will the authority be liable. The fact that the road may not be safe in the first instance is not the issue. £2.5 Million Settlement in Hotel Illness Case Emmetts Solicitors - 14/04/2008 A group of British holidaymakers has won more than £2.5 million in compensation for illness they suffered while staying at a hotel in Spain. Many holidaymakers contracted the ‘norovirus’ infection while staying at the Beach Club Hotel in Torremolinos between 2000 and 2002. Norovirus is the name given to a group of viruses, the symptoms of which are nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps. The virus is often contracted from eating or drinking contaminated substances. The effects of the virus normally last for a few days, but some of the claimants are still suffering from its after-effects years later. The holidaymakers brought the group action against tour operators Thomson and Thomas Cook, who for a long time denied liability for the claim, even though over a prolonged period a number of people had become ill while staying at the hotel. However, medical evidence was produced as well as documents showing that the hotel management, along with others, had made serious mistakes with regard to hygiene. Shortly before the case was due to be heard in the High Court, the claim was settled. The tour operators and the hotel agreed to pay more than £2.5 million in compensation, thought to be the largest settlement of its type. The money will be divided between nearly 1,000 claimants on the basis of a number of factors including the severity of their illnesses. If you are struck down with illness on a package holiday, you may have a right to claim against the tour operator. It is important to remember that such illnesses are common and to obtain compensation you need to prove that the tour operator was at fault and the resort failed to exercise reasonable care to prevent infection. In order for a claim to be successful, there are a number of steps you should take: Get evidence. Obtaining pictures or video footage and supporting evidence from other holidaymakers is important. Make notes of the standard of cleanliness, food hygiene and so on. Ask to see and copy (or make notes on) the complaints file at the resort; Share names and addresses with anyone else at the same resort who is also ill; Make a diary of where you went and where you ate. If you have eaten food not provided by the tour operator, be prepared to show that other people eating at the same place did not become ill; Inform the holiday representative of your illness as soon as possible and make notes of your conversations with them and anyone else working for the holiday company; Be prepared to prove that you were ill. Obtain documentary evidence of your illness from the doctor or hospital. See your doctor as soon as possible once you get home if symptoms persist; and Record your symptoms in detail for as long as they persist and their effect on your everyday life. It may be difficult to obtain a great deal of evidence – especially when you are ill – but in order to be successful, you will need to demonstrate that the tour operator (i.e. the resort they have contracted themselves to) is the source of the sickness and that they are responsible for it because of a failure to exercise reasonable care to prevent the infection or contamination. If you have had your holiday ruined by illness, contact Richard Emmett for advice on how to proceed. Welcome News for People Injured Abroad Emmetts Solicitors - 07/04/2008 Being injured in a road traffic accident whilst on holiday is a very unpleasant occurrence. Until recently, this has been made worse in many cases by the difficulties which can arise in seeking legal redress against the insurer of the responsible person. Recently, the European Court of Justice has issued a ruling that will come as a relief to people who find themselves in this situation. The Court decided that a person who is injured abroad can bring a claim against the responsible person’s insurer in their home country – subject to certain conditions. The main condition is that the claimant and insurer must be domiciled in the European Economic Area. The right does not extend to claims against individuals, but would also apply to an injury sustained in the UK where the person who caused the injury is insured abroad. The right to make a claim in the UK courts in such circumstances will make the whole process quicker and less expensive, which is to be welcomed. If you are injured through the fault of someone else whilst on holiday abroad, contact us for advice. Victim Wins Right to Proceed with Compensation Claim Emmetts Solicitors - 15/03/2008 A landmark decision of the House of Lords could pave the way for some victims of sexual abuse to claim compensation from their attackers many years after the attack took place. Mrs A, a retired teacher, has won the right to sue for damages a man who attacked her in 1988. Her attacker, Iorworth Hoare, was jailed for six sex attacks committed during the 1970s and 1980s. At the time of the attack, Mrs A was advised not to bring a claim against Mr Hoare because he did not have any money. Instead, she made a claim to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and received just £5,000 in compensation. However, since then Mr Hoare has scooped a £7 million win on the lottery after he bought a ticket whilst on day release from Leyhill open prison in 1994. Mrs A then commenced a claim for compensation in the High Court. However, the Court ruled that her claim was outside the legal six-year time limit for bringing an action. The Court of Appeal rejected Mrs A’s appeal against this decision. When the case came before the House of Lords, Mrs A asked for a change in the law that prevented compensation claims for sexual assault being made outside the strict time limits. Five Law Lords unanimously ruled that courts should have the discretion to extend the limitation period to permit ‘out of time’ claims. The case will now go back to the High Court to be reconsidered in the light of this decision. Four other appeals by people seeking compensation for sexual abuse that took place more than six years ago were also heard and these can also now proceed. Says Richard Emmett, “Prior to this judgment, the law prevented victims of sexual assault from bringing a claim after the six-year time limit had expired. In cases of child abuse, claims were only permitted up to six years after the child had reached the age of 18. Such attacks can have long-term traumatic effects on the victim which may prevent them proceeding with a timely damages claim.” Accident Group Settlement 1st February 2008 Manchester-based solicitors Rowe Cohen and a raft of other personal injury firms have come to a settlement in The Accident Group (TAG) litigation. The dispute, which some commentators said could have put scores of law firms out of business, came to an end when an agreement was struck with insurers Winterthur and National Insurance and Guarantee (NIG) yesterday (31 January). The Swiss insurance giant Winterthur launched claims against 500 personal injury solicitors after claims that accident group TAG collapsed in April 2003. TAG had run up debts of more than £100m prior to going out of business. The debts arose after the company initiated around 200,000 claims through an aggressive recruitment drive of victims. Winterthur alleged that TAG's referral law firms deliberately passed cases that would fail to the claims group. This lead to Winterthur making claims for negligence and repayment of the accident investigation fee, known as the AIL fee. Porton Down veterans agree settlement 31 January 2008 Lawyers acting for 359 of the Porton Down test veterans have announced a £3 million settlement with the Ministry of Defence. The tests were designed to ensure that UK could respond to a chemical weapons attack during the Cold War. Veterans minister Derek Twigg issued an apology on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, accepting that life and health of participants in the trials may have been put at risk. The Porton Down Veterans Group was represented by Leigh Day and Co and Thomas Snell & Passmore. Martyn Day, senior partner of Leigh Day and Co, said: “The treatment of the veterans was simply appalling. “However, today’s settlement and apology will undoubtedly go some way to healing the wounds that this episode caused.” Free No Obligation Claim Assessment - Click Here

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