All Posts in Category: Personal Injury

Clinical Negligence Fees to be capped

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In cases below £100,000 it is likely that set fees will be put in place. Between 2013/14 the NHS paid out £259 million in legal fees and although they recovered £74million by challenging some of the claims they have said it was costly and time consuming to do so.

The proposals will be put to a public consultation in the autumn with an express call to ensure lawyers fees reflect the level of compensation paid to the claimants.

The Department of Health quoted a case where the claimant received £11,800 in damages whilst legal fees amounted to £175,000.
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However, Lawyers have warned that capping fees could restrict access to justice. Deborah Evans, Chief Executive of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said ‘ We’re always concerned about the governments proposals to fix costs because the emphasis is always on cost reduction rather than getting costs right, and it is incredibly important that the fees allowed enable a sufficiently experienced lawyer to investigate the claim properly’

Health Minister, Ben Gummer, said ‘Safe, compassionate care is my upmost priority and to achieve this the NHS must make sure every penny counts’

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Insurers want to curb ‘The New Whiplash’

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In a report called ‘The New Whiplash’ the ABI stated less than one fifth of the 200,000 NIHL claims submitted since 2012 have been eligible for compensation. Furthermore, it says the claims have increased dramatically as displaced personal injury solicitors look to find new work.

ABI has also called for the government to extend its fixed costs regime outside the current online portal to include disease claims and to also include NIHL in the Medco panel. ABI has also called for more implementation to further control cold calling.

James Dalton, ABI Director of Insurance said claims for hearing loss should be falling as health and safety measures have been improving, ‘ The recent spike in claims can only be the result of claimant lawyers spotting the potential to earn sizeable fees from these cases after their sky high earnings from whiplash claims were reduced’

But specialists involved in the handling of these cases have disputed the fact that lawyers have jumped from chasing whiplash fees to NIHL fees. Bridget Collier who sits on the board of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers said ‘ These claims only succeed when negligence is proven, they are not straightforward to win and it’s not an area that you can just dabble in’

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Aviva recently reported that for every £1 it was paying out in successful noise-induced hearing loss claims, it was paying £5 in legal fees.

Last week The Ministry of Justice asked the Civil Justice Council (CJC) to investigate the number and cost of claims for NIHL. A ministry spokesman said ‘In response to ongoing concern about the number and cost of noise-induced hearing loss claims, we have asked the CJC to consider the issue and make recommendations. In response James Dalton said ‘ The insurance industry looks forward to working with the CJC to develop a practical and deliverable framework that seeks to make legal fees more proportionate and to ensure genuine claimants receive fair compensation in a timely and efficient manner’

Jonathan Wheeler, President of APIL said ‘ We hope the CJC considers the amount of work involved for claimant lawyers to get these complex cases off the ground, and the importance of ensuring that the ability to perform that work on behalf of the claimants is not restricted’

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Fundamental Dishonesty Rule Change

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Section 57 of the Act, which received Royal Assent in February this year, provides that if, on an application by the defendant, an otherwise successful claimant is found on the balance of probabilities to have been ‘fundamentally dishonest’ in relation to a claim, said claim must be dismissed unless the court is satisfied the claimant would suffer substantial injustice.

APIL members meet in Newport last Thursday for their annual conference, where new president Jonathan Wheeler described the treatment of claimants as ‘draconian’ and appealed for insurance firms to come under the same scrutiny. ‘What about defendants who pursue fundamentally dishonest defences?’ he said in his keynote speech. There was no extensor lag difference between splints at 12-week follow-up and increased extensor lag was sildenafil in usa noted with all three splints after discontinuation at 6 weeks of time. It is alleged as one viagra mg of the best anti impotence drug available in the market now. It has a half-life of three to 4 hours. uk generic viagra on the other hand has a half-life of 4 to 5 hours. It is better to choose foods that don’t make you want to buying levitra online smoke. ‘How about the defendant who purposefully sets out to delay a settlement on behalf of a terminally ill claimant, because it would be cheaper to pay out on the claim when they are dead? ‘Why aren’t such defendant practices also caught by legislation?’ If found guilty of fundamental dishonesty, not only will a claimant recover no damages but they would also lose the costs protection offered by qualified one-way costs shifting (QOCS), as a court finding fundamental dishonesty for the purposes of section 57 will find it for the purposes of Civil Procedure Rules 44.16, which allows for the displacement of QOCS costs protection, too.

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