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
FAQs
Below are listed all of our articles covering Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs) in relation to Personal Injury Claims in Scotland.
Your personal injury claim solicitor: the difference between winning and losing?
Terence Connelly suffered a serious injury to his arm. He fell while playing tennis on a carpeted court at a leisure centre in Renfrew. One of his feet got stuck in the surface and he fell heavily. It appears that he had on the wrong kind of tennis shoes. It turned out there was a special type of shoes he should have been wearing, though he did not know that at the time. Mr Connelly made a personal injury claim against the leisure centre. He pointed to the fact that, following the accident, signs were put up at the centre stating: “Non-marking smooth-soled tennis shoes on carpet courts”. His action was unsuccessful in the Sheriff Court before first the Sheriff and then on appeal to the Sheriff Principal. He further appealed to the Court of Session but that appeal also failed. He conducted all three hearings in the case himself. In essence, the claim was unsuccessful because the various judges did not feel able to say that, on the available evidence at the date of the Continue Reading
