Personal injury compensation claims are about money. The purpose of the process is to put you, the injured person, back in the same position you would have been in if the accident had not happened. At least, as far as that is possible through money alone. We know from research that, in many cases, rehabilitation can help injured people recover more quickly, improve their quality of life and get them back to work more quickly. This means that rehabilitation can be a key factor in getting an injured person back to the state they would have been in were it not for the accident. Where rehabilitation has to be paid for, the cost can generally be recovered as part of your compensation, provided it is reasonable. When is rehabilitation appropriate? It can be helpful in relation to both physical and psychological injuries. If you have a whiplash injury, you may benefit from a course of physiotherapy. In more serious cases, for example, involving loss of a limb, rehabilitation may include the Continue Reading
What are the downsides of QOCS for Scottish personal injury claimants?
We've talked about Qualified One-Way Costs Shifting (QOCS) before now because it is an important topic. In Scotland, the "normal rule" whereby an unsuccessful claimant for personal injury compensation will no longer have to pay court costs / expenses if the claim fails will have various exceptions. In these situations, the claimant will lose QOCS protection and have to pay the costs of their opponent. The claimant will only be liable for their opponent's expenses in Scotland where they have: We have waited three years for the QOCS regulations to come in. They were enacted from 30 June 2021. In many respects, the regulations mirror those already in force in England and Wales. The basic principle is the same and the exceptions are largely the same. Abuse of process, behaving manifestly unreasonably and also acting fraudulently or making a fraudulent misrepresentation. One big difference is that Scotland has not enacted any equivalent concept to England and Continue Reading
Help From The Other Driver’s Insurer (How To Avoid Being Misled)
An "innocent third party car claim" is how some motor insurers describe what you have if one of their customers has crashed into your vehicle and it’s not your fault. In other words, the motor insurers in question are the third-party insurers, not your own motor insurers. Their customer was to blame for the accident. The third-party insurers’ offer to you is that you should let them take care of you and your vehicle in sorting things out. This help from the other driver's insurer can include: the repair of your vehicle (or a payment to represent its value if it has been written off), use of a hire vehicle, free of charge, while your own vehicle is being repaired; and help if you have been injured – to include treatment/rehabilitation and compensation. But couldn't you deal through your own insurers? If you have comprehensive motor insurance, one of your options is to deal with a claim for damage to your car through your own motor insurers. This can be an involved process. You may Continue Reading
Deciding how best to respond to a Minute of Tender in practice
Tea drinking is a national pastime in Nepal. They have all sorts of teas - sweet, butter, hot, cold, black, white. The ritual with tea is that, when offered tea, you decline it and your host insists that you have some. No matter how much you say no, they still insist that you have it. So you drink it. In other words, it's a situation with drink consumption where "no" means "yes". With personal injury court actions, as the claimant, if your opponent offers you settlement via a Minute of Tender, you want to say "no" (because you always want them to make you a better offer). Unfortunately, you might find that however much you say "no", depending on the level of offer, your legal adviser may have to insist that you say "yes" and accept it. It's one of the situations that can happen with Minutes of Tender. You think your personal injury claim’s worth £20,000 but you’ve got a formal offer (Minute of Tender) in your court action to settle at £10,000. Should you accept the Continue Reading