Rural roads account for over 70% of fatal accidents, according to statistics published by RoSPA. In Scotland, trunk roads, such as the A9 and A96, are maintained by independent companies but more minor roads are the responsibility of local authorities. Of course, the more minor roads tend to have a greater amount of bends and ups and downs. The increased dangers for drivers are obvious: whether it’s from other traffic, such as slow-moving farm vehicles, or from the state of the road itself. Roads authorities can rarely be blamed for accidents A Court of Session decision from June 2012 – arising out of a tragic accident in North-east Scotland - has provided a reminder of the considerable limitations on local authorities’ duties and the emphasis that is placed on the personal responsibility of the individual driver. In these cash-strapped times, the duties the law imposes on local authorities to maintain road markings and signage are not likely to increase in the foreseeable Continue Reading
Fatal Accident Claims: Different in Scotland
On 16 July 2009, Peter McGee fell down the stairs at his home in Springburn, Glasgow. Two days later, he died in hospital as a result of complications from his injuries. His wife, Catherine, and other family members raised an action in the Court of Session against RJK Building Services Ltd, who had carried out joinery work at the property on the instructions of Glasgow City Council, Mr and Mrs McGee’s landlords. In an Opinion issued on 18 January 2013, Lord Drummond Young found that RJK were to blame for Mr McGee’s injuries and death because they had been negligent in the way they fitted a handrail on the stairs. The handrail had come loose from the wall as Mr McGee descended the stairs, causing him to fall. A lengthy marriage At the time of his death, Mr McGee was 71 years old. His wife was a few months younger than him. They had been married for 36 years. An area of personal injury law where Scotland is different Personal injury law is applied identically or Continue Reading
Denial of Compensation and Justice: Enterprising Reform
The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, currently going through the Westminster Parliament, might not sound to you as though it should have much to do with personal injury law but it does. Specifically, it is claims for injury arising from accidents at work that are potentially affected and the consequences are significant. A late amendment was introduced to the Bill by the Government in October 2012, without consultation. If this new provision becomes law, the effect will be to make breaches of health and safety regulations – which currently give rise to civil liability on the part of employers – no longer actionable. UK health and safety law has undergone a revolution particularly in the last 20 years as a result of workplace directives and regulations from the EU. This is sometimes referred to as unnecessary “red tape” but the fact is that the number of workplace accidents has reduced significantly as a result of developments in the law throughout the whole of the 20th century. Continue Reading
Contributory Negligence or Entirely Your Own Fault?
Hitting a detonator with a hammer to see what happens. Does that (bang) sound to you like a good idea? There are some situations where an injured person’s own conduct seems quite foolhardy in the circumstances and yet they have still been able to get compensation for their losses. In some situations, though, the claimant’s own conduct can be seen as such an overwhelming cause of their injury that it is taken to be the only cause having any legal effect – and the injured person in that type of case is often said to be ‘the author of their own injury’. A finding of that nature means your claim fails. In a Scottish case reported in 1957 (Donaghy –v- National Coal Board), a young miner sued his employers for damages for injuries which he suffered when he exploded a detonator by striking it with a hammer. He alleged that he had done this in the belief that, if struck sharply, a detonator would do no more than make a harmless noise. This claim did not succeed. The judge in Continue Reading
Moray Claims Place in World List of Scenic Coastlines
National Geographic has put the Moray Coast in the top twenty of its world list of the most beautiful coastal regions. This should be good news for tourism in Moray and the North of Scotland. The article – which is available on the National Geographic Travel website – emphasises the area’s outstanding cliff scenery and strong community feeling. It has been formulated from opinions from a panel of 340 experts in sustainable tourism taken together with views of readers on the locations of the Earth’s most scenic coastal regions. Comments from readers included that the Moray Coast is: "A wonderful region of Scotland - beaches are fantastic, and the area welcomes visitors as one of their own.” Continue Reading
Accidents at Work – Loss of Earnings
Where you have been injured in an accident, a common consequence is that you will not be fit for work for a period of time. We often find that our personal injury clients who are victims of accidents in the workplace - in situations where it was the employer's breach of duty that caused the accident - only decide to make a claim at all because during their absence they receive wages at a reduced rate. It seems unfair that not only have you been injured due to your employer's fault but you then also suffer a personal / family financial crisis. Some employers have a company sick pay scheme, usually set out in the employee's written terms and conditions. If you have the benefit of a scheme like this, it will often mean you getting full pay for some weeks or months, then half pay, eventually reducing to nil. If you are injured and there is no employer's scheme in place, you may still be eligible for statutory sick pay (SSP), the standard weekly rate for which is currently £85.85 Continue Reading
Accidents on Rural Roads
RoSPA - the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents - published a policy paper (August 2010) addressing the safety of rural roads, which could be of interest to you if you have suffered personal injury on the roads in Moray or elsewhere in the North of Scotland. The publication points out that rural roads have not seen as rapid a fall in accident rates as urban areas in recent years. Rural roads still account for over 70% of fatal road accidents. RoSPA is of the view that simply managing the road environment itself can help to reduce the number of incidents where the road is a primary or indirect cause of the accident. According to RoSPA, some useful options are to alter the perceived road width with markings or roadside islands or by changing or removing the centre line. "Forgiving roadsides" can also help reduce the risk and severity of injury sustained if a vehicle leaves the main carriageway for a short period. If you have been injured in a road accident then Continue Reading
Legal Expenses Insurance: one method of funding your personal injury claim
If you have had an accident and been injured, you may have insurance cover for the cost of instructing a solicitor that you didn't even know you had. Most of us hold some form of insurance - household (buildings or contents), medical, car, holiday - the list is endless. Many such policies have Legal Expenses Insurance (LEI) as an add-on, often buried in the small print. If you need to make a personal injury claim following an accident, LEI is one way of funding your claim. Others are "no win - no fee" and, in Scotland, Legal Aid. There can also be similar cover through bank accounts, credit cards and bank / organisation memberships. Some of us at Moray Claims / Grigor & Young are members of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and they have produced a helpful downloadable pamphlet which includes discussion about these issues. How we can help We can help you determine whether this type of funding - or any of the others - would be available to help you Continue Reading
New Injury Claim Value Guidelines Promote Gender Equality in Scarring Cases
When you receive compensation from a personal injury claim, in most cases, there are damages paid for losses beyond the personal injury itself, such as loss of earnings or replacement of damaged clothing. The claim for the pain and suffering associated with the injuries is known under Scots Law as “solatium”. In England and Wales, the term used is “general damages”. We value the claim for solatium by finding reports of previous cases from the courts where the claimants had similar injuries. In general terms, the valuation depends on the nature of the injuries sustained and the length of time it takes you to recover from them. Valuing personal injury claims is not a straightforward exercise because no two cases are ever precisely the same. Yet justice requires that there should be consistency between awards. It is now 20 years since the first publication of the Judicial Studies Board (“JSB”) Guidelines. The JSB Guidelines are in booklet form and are the result of the deliberations of Continue Reading
Ladder Accidents
[NOTE: This article also forms the basis of a podcast episode - "Ladder Safety Hazards" - available on this website. If you prefer to listen to this content rather than read it, please go to the podcast audio] Ladders are surprisingly dangerous. The introduction to the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) publication “Safe Use of Ladders and Stepladders – An Employer’s Guide” (link to PDF - download begins immediately) confirms that: “A third of all reported fall-from-height incidents involve ladders and stepladders. On average this accounts for 14 deaths and 1200 major injuries to workers each year. Many of these injuries are caused by inappropriate or incorrect use of the equipment.” There is a reported instance of someone suffering a fatal injury after losing their footing on the second rung of a ladder, falling backwards and hitting their head on the floor. Unfortunately, judges have a tendency to regard ladder use as requiring nothing more than common sense. As a Continue Reading
Child accidents: why it can be a bad idea to prejudge your chances of success
If you have been injured in an accident and you think it was partly or wholly your fault, it might discourage you from making a claim at all. You need to remember that negligence is a legal concept. Injured people who think they are legally to blame for the accident which caused their injuries are often wrong. It is always worth getting legal advice from a specialist personal injury solicitor. Where the injured person is a child, often it can appear that they have been foolhardy in their behaviour. Cases in which children have climbed onto things and fallen or otherwise hurt themselves are nothing new to the law. In a case from the year 2000, the eminent judge, Lord Hoffman, pointed out that the law appreciates that the ingenuity of children “in finding unexpected ways of doing mischief to themselves and others should never be underestimated”. Lisa Wardle made a claim against Scottish Borders Council on behalf of her nine-year-old daughter. This was after her daughter fell Continue Reading
Contributory negligence: what is it?
By definition, contributory negligence can only come into play where your claim is going to be successful. The insurance company dealing with the claim will have accepted 'primary' liability and, in doing so, they accept they have to pay you some compensation. However, they want to restrict how much they have to pay to you and contributory negligence is one way they can try to do that. It means they are saying the accident or the injuries you have suffered were partly due to your own fault. This could be because: you did not take proper care when crossing the road and that was part of the reason for you being knocked down; you tripped over something you ought to have seen, if you had been taking reasonable care; you did not wear a hard hat on a construction site and you were more seriously injured than you would have been otherwise when something fell on your head; or as per the photograph at the top of this article, you were injured due to Continue Reading