You’re in a rush. It’s a dark, wet Monday morning in January. You want to cross the main road on foot at traffic lights, using the pedestrian crossing there; but the lights are green for vehicles - and red for you to cross. On the approach to the traffic lights for vehicles, there are two bus stops. It’s a predominantly residential area. You decide you have to risk crossing on red. Dashing onto the crossing, you suddenly realise an approaching car is bearing down on you. It’s about 5m away and travelling close to the speed limit of 30mph. Your brain freezes with panic. You've misjudged the speed of the oncoming vehicle. You’re rooted to the spot. Paralysed with fear. It's too late to get out of the way. Though the car driver instinctively swerves to avoid you, having only noticed you late, the collision is inevitable. The impact throws you up onto the bonnet. Your head hits the nearside windscreen, causing a “bullseye” break in the glass - i.e. a spider’s web-like Continue Reading
Child Accident Articles
Below you can find our articles about the legal aspects of accidents involving injuries to children.
If You Go To Court Will You Get 33 Times More Compensation For Your Personal Injury Claim?
We at Grigor & Young / Moray Claims recently dealt with a personal injury claim for a child who had suffered loss of several teeth following a fall in a local-authority-run play park - caused by a defective ground surface. The best settlement offer received from the insurers in negotiations before court action was raised was £750. Raising a court action resulted in a subsequent negotiated settlement of the claim at £25,000 – in other words, 33 times the best pre-litigation offer. Insurance companies are constantly putting forward the line that personal injury solicitors are simply expensive middle men. The insurers maintain that they can themselves fairly assess the compensation that is due and that, if you choose to deal with them directly, you will not be prejudiced. They will negotiate settlement of the claim with you and your claim will not have to go to court. The insurers say that the benefits of this solicitor-less approach go further. If less money has to be spent on Continue Reading
School Accidents: Three Sides To Every Story
The hysteria that goes along with the so-called “Compensation Culture” is generally nowhere more misplaced than in relation to accidents to children at school. Parents who instruct solicitors to pursue claims for damages for injuries to their children sustained in school will usually only experience disappointment. That’s not say that these claims can never succeed but “health and safety gone mad” tends to crop up a lot in this context. The standard of care expected of a school is that of the reasonable parent. Castle View School in Canvey Island, Essex, has reportedly banned triangular flapjacks after a student was struck in the face by one at break time. Canteen staff have been instructed that in future they must cut flapjacks into squares or rectangles. A spokesman for the school said: "I can confirm that the texture and shape of the flapjacks were reviewed following an isolated accident last week." A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive said, pointedly: "We 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