Our previous articles in this series have explained how the Government’s proposed changes to the small claims limit will affect a huge number of routine injury claims as legal representation may no longer be available.
Agreeing liability, or who is responsible for someone’s injury, can be complex. If there is a dispute over who is to blame then injured victims may encounter many difficulties.
Who should you claim against?
To begin with, it is not always easy to know who you should bring an injury claim against. In some cases it is obvious, such as when one driver collides with a pedestrian. However, we frequently have to give detailed thought to this question before we even get the claim off the ground.
What if there are multiple vehicles involved in a road traffic accident? Do we claim against all of them or some of them? What proportion of the blame should we ask each driver to accept? What if the driver who was to blame does not have insurance or we do not know his details, or he was driving a foreign vehicle?
Trips & Slips
Tripping and slipping cases can be particularly problematic when it comes to identifying the correct opponent. If we can establish that an accident definitely happened on a public highway, then the highway authority can be fairly easy to establish.
However, frequently such accidents happen on other types of land and it could be the land owner who is responsible (often requiring a Land Registry search to identify them), or it could be the tenant, or perhaps a contractor working on that land.
Sometimes pieces of land have no obvious owner. We have often encountered arguments between numerous parties as to who is responsible for a location. Getting to the bottom of this involves time and effort, not to mention an appreciation of property law and the law of contract.
Accidents at Work
Accidents at work are not necessarily straightforward either. An injured person’s employer may not necessarily be to blame. The big question is who had ‘control’ over the situation that gave rise to the accident – that might be the employer, but it could be another party working nearby, or the occupier of premises where the injured person was working.
Accidents on construction sites in particular give rise to these types of problems. The relationships between contractors, sub-contractors, main contractors, site owners etc. can be complex and unclear. Claims like this frequently end up being pursued against multiple parties.
Establishing Liability
Having established who we think is to blame, we then need to go on to explain to them (and ultimately to the Court) why we say they are to blame.
That is not as simple as it sounds. Liability only attaches to a party when the law says it does – i.e. when the claimant can prove that their opponent owed them a duty of care (by reference to appropriate legal authority) and that they breached that duty.
The standard of care which applies is different in each case, depending upon the relationship between the parties and the particular circumstances of the case.
It is necessary to deal with all these issues in every claim, whether it is worth £1,000 or £1m. Furthermore, the lower the value of the claim does not mean that the arguments get easier.
We question whether many injured victims without legal representation would be capable of appreciating the need to consider all of these issues, let alone be able to investigate them and get to the right answer.
This raises serious concerns about access to justice for thousands of claimants.
How Nelsons Can Help
Nelsons has a expert team of personal injury solicitors who specialise in all types of claims. To speak to a member of the team, please contact us on 0800 024 1976 or via our online form.