Our blog shares clear, practical guidance on personal injury claims in Scotland — including fault, compensation, timescales, and dealing with insurers. Many of the articles answer questions we’re regularly asked by people who are unsure whether to claim, are dealing directly with insurers, or want to understand their rights before deciding what to do next. Start here: key guides Popular questions Common situations Back to the main blog page Editor’s note: This guide stays at the top of the list of blog posts to help new readers find key information. Continue Reading
Why it is key that it is no problem to see your PI solicitor in person (if you want to see them in person!)
If you have had an accident and you live in Moray, it should be easy to have a face-to-face meeting with your solicitor, if you wish. (i.e. It's key that you won’t have any difficulty having a face-to-face meeting with your solicitor if you want to meet with them face-to-face). Since the Pandemic of the early 2020s, as well as the possibility of exchanging information with your solicitor by letter or email or having a ‘meeting’ with them by telephone, there are many available options which do not require you to the physical presence of your solicitor – e.g. online video platforms. such as Zoom or Teams. Is it crucial to meet with your solicitor face-to-face? It's probably not crucial. However, we know from experience that even meeting via online video does not give us all the verbal and non-verbal cues which we get if we are in the personal presence of the person to whom we are speaking. An in-person meeting is probably always better because there is less chance of Continue Reading
When English insurers refuse to apply Scots Law to a Scottish personal injury claim
Rugby League and Rugby Union have common origins. There are many similarities between the two codes. Both kinds of rugby use an oval ball and play on a rectangular pitch with H-shaped goals. Each plays two halves of 40 minutes. Passes must always go backwards. Tackling is a crucial element in each. But there are significant differences as well. There are 15 players in a Rugby Union team and 13 players in a Rugby League team. There are no lineouts in Rugby League. If a ruck or maul develops in Rugby Union there is a material chance that possession will change hands whereas in Rugby League possession is generally retained by the team which previously had possession – up to the point of the ‘sixth tackle’ when possession will automatically change hands according to the rules of Rugby League. There are some who say that Rugby Union is played at a slower pace - with more stoppages - whereas Rugby League maintains a generally higher pace of play, with higher ball-in-play Continue Reading
E-Scooter and E-Bike Accidents in Scotland – Your rights to claim for injury
Have you tried out or do you own an e-Bike or e-Scooter? The streets of some parts of Scotland have been transformed by the surge in popularity of e-bikes and e-scooters. While these devices offer a convenient and often eco-friendly mode of transport, their rapid adoption has created a complex legal landscape for those involved in accidents. Misinformation about the legal position of riders is widespread and this article aims to clarify the current legal position in Scotland for potential victims of accidents involving e-bikes, e-scooters, and their variants. We will include a discussion of the factors affecting the viability of a personal injury claim where one of these vehicles is involved. Understanding the legal standing of the vehicle involved is the first crucial step in assessing the viability of a claim. The law differentiates significantly between various types of electrically powered personal transport. The Different Classes of Electric Personal Continue Reading
When an insurer denies liability without showing reasonable justification
Sometimes an insurer or loss adjuster's behaviour is so unacceptable – and they will not apparently listen to any reasoning – that the only way you can have a chance of getting their attention is to call them out publicly for their behaviour. This article is about a situation we have encountered with insurers and loss adjusters where they will not give us sufficient information in relation to a claim – in which they are denying liability - to enable us to advise our client whether or not the denial of liability is reasonable. We investigate many potential claims where the evidence the opponent produces shows that the claim's chances of success are poor. It is to be expected that not all personal injury compensation claims can be successful. No solicitor will mind that, provided the opponent provides the solicitor with sufficient evidence for the solicitor to be able to understand the denial of liability and explain it to you, as the injured client. In cases which involve Continue Reading
When an insurer refuses to pay all your solicitor’s outlays in a personal injury claim
Personal injury claims in Scotland are set up in such a way that, if liability for the accident and injuries is admitted, in most cases it will then be possible to go on to negotiate a settlement of the claim without the need for court action. The rules of the Scottish Compulsory Pre-action Protocol provide a way to calculate the fee which will be due to the solicitor based on the amount of compensation that is agreed. The rules also provide that the insurer will meet "all reasonable outlays". The sorts of “outlays” that are envisaged include: the cost of medical reports; police accident reports; and professional photographs taken to show the extent of any residual scarring stop In most cases, calculation of the fee and recovery of the outlays related to an agreed amount of compensation is a formality. But sometimes an insurer will object to a particular outlay for some reason and in this article we will discuss an experience we had recently where insurers offered only a Continue Reading
Prove Breach of Duty But Lose Your Claim – When Can That Happen?
When Andrew Kay was 2 years old, he contracted meningitis. It is a dangerous medical condition, causing inflammation of membranes in the central nervous system, and affecting the brain. On 28 November 1975, Andrew was admitted to Seafield Children’s Hospital in Ayr, seriously ill. As part of his treatment, he received an injection of penicillin. The problem was that, by mistake, he was given a massive overdose of penicillin – receiving about 30 (thirty) times the correct dose. In such a quantity, the penicillin was toxic and it caused Andrew to suffer convulsions. He later developed paralysis down one side of his body, though it was short-lived. Andrew recovered from his life-threatening illness, but he was left profoundly deaf. He also had significant learning difficulties. A claim for compensation From 1978, Andrew’s Dad, partly conducting the case himself, made a compensation claim on behalf of his son, raising an action in the Court of Session. Before the judge (in 1984), the Continue Reading
Negligence: what is it?
Accidents which are no one's fault ... An accident is an event which could not reasonably have been foreseen by anyone and for which no one should be held responsible. If your injury is the result of such a mishap - a ‘pure’ accident - you will not be able to make a successful claim for compensation. ... Accidents which are someone's fault The modern idea of negligence dates from the 1930s. Negligence: what is it ? The basic definition of negligence that lawyers now use comes from the Scottish case of Donoghue –v- Stevenson. As a result of that case and other later cases, the law places defined limits on the classes of person who can claim and the types of injury for which they can claim. If you are going to be able to claim successfully, the person who injured you has to have been in such a position that they ought to have had you in mind when considering the possible impact of their actions in the circumstances. In practice, from the point of view of the person owing the duty of Continue Reading
Free of charge help with your personal injury claim from a solicitor (even if your claim succeeds)?
It’s natural to be suspicious if someone seems to be offering you something valuable in return for nothing. We are all conditioned to think that if something sounds “too good to be true”, then it must in fact be too good to be true. There are times when we’re vulnerable to letting our guard down – for example, if it’s something we really want – and system tools have evolved to provide some protection. For example, many spam filters will catch emails with “free” in the subject line because use of that one word alone indicates dodgy intentions on the part of the sender. But just because a service is offered as 'provided free of charge' to you, it's not necessarily dodgy as long as the service provider is getting by some other method - such as happens with solicitors working for claimants with personal injury claims. We invite people to ask us questions via our Google Business page. You can ask a question of Moray Claims on Google Business here. You can see the questions Continue Reading
Complementary therapies in personal injury compensation claims
In 2007, I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, a bacteriological infection you get from deer ticks. Some of the main symptoms were tiredness , lethargy and “brain fog”. I was treated with antibiotics over a period of about 9 months, some oral, some intravenous. I recovered but had some annoying residual symptoms, including neck stiffness and pain. I tried a treatment from complementary medicine, called craniosacral therapy, through Healthworks in Forres, and got a lot of benefit from it. I consider my recovery was due to a combination of conventional and complementary medicine. I am a believer in the benefits of complementary therapies. But I relied primarily on conventional medicine and at all times after I had been diagnosed by my GP and referred for expert opinion, I was under the care of a consultant in the Infectious Diseases department of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Complementary therapies have a lot of advantages but in the context of a personal injury claim Continue Reading
How do you prove your loss in a personal injury claim?
What are the things you must do to prove your loss - and to minimise your loss - in a Personal Injury Compensation Claim? How easy is it to value a personal injury compensation claim? In theory, working out the value of your personal injury claim should be straightforward. What your solicitor needs to do is make a comparison between two possible factual scenarios: Both of these key elements are estimates or projections, to some extent. Both will carry uncertainties, to a greater or lesser extent. There are two important things to bear in mind when comparing "your life as it is in fact" (with the accident) with "your life as is should have been" (without the accident). Let's look at each of these in turn. 1. Did the accident cause the loss you are trying to claim. In some instances, this will be “obvious”. For example, if your accident did not cause any injury to your wrist, a claim for physiotherapy costs incurred in relation to the wrist will fail Continue Reading
Services Claims: Help From Your Family After An Accident
(NOTE: This is an updated version of a post originally published on this website on 24 October 2013). If you have been injured in an accident, it may well have put you out of action for a while with the result that you needed help from members of your family. The law in Scotland allows relatives to claim compensation for the time they give up to help you. This might seem strange: you would hope and expect they would do that anyway, without requiring any financial reward. On the other hand, if they were not there to help you, it would make life awkward, at best, and unmanageable, at worst, unless you could get help from some other source. So it makes sense that compensation should be available for them for the time involved in providing you with assistance. Their claim does not stand on its own; it can only be made as part of a personal injury claim by you, the injured person. Two Types of Services Claim There is the possibility to make a claim for two different types of services under Continue Reading