Lawford Kidd's Blog

Uncontested claims for compensation for “slips and trips” and other injuries at work or in a public place in England and Wales can now handled by a simpler and faster legal system, the Ministry of Justice has announced.

The change will make no difference to the amount of compensation victims will receive for genuine claims but will reduce the unnecessary additional bills faced by insurers and enable them to pass on savings to customers.

The move is part of a package of reforms brought in by Government this year to tackle the high cost of insurance premiums. These have been blamed for schools, businesses, community groups, councils and others being unable to stage activities where there is any risk of someone getting injured, as well as increasing costs for drivers.

Severely injured people, forced to gamble with their compensation to cover the cost of future support, could face having their damages cut further under Government proposals.

High-value damages payments are subject to a reduction to offset any interest that may be earned over time. Despite the fall in interest rates during the recession, the current “discount rate” has not been reviewed since 2001, which the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) warns is costing critically injured people the money they need for their care in the future.

“If a man is paralysed, for example, he is likely to need specialist equipment and therapies for the rest of his life. His damages to pay for these things are very carefully calculated by the courts, but under the current discount rate that money is being reduced too far and there is a very real danger it could run out,” explained APIL’s president Matthew Stockwell.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has claimed that a new clause introduced to the  Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill by the Government has put workplace health and safety back into the Victorian age.

APIL president Karl Tonks explained:

“At the moment, where an employer has been found to have breached health and safety regulations and someone has been injured as a result, the injured person has an automatic right to claim compensation. The law has been clear on this point since a landmark case was brought in 1898.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a new cost recovery scheme, with the aim of recovering the costs of inspecting, investigating and taking enforcement action against businesses that break health and safety laws.

Known as Fee for Intervention (FFI), the scheme began to operate on 1st October and will enable the HSE to recover costs where there has been a material breach of health and safety law.

A material breach is where a business or organisation has broken the law and the inspector judges it serious enough to notify them in writing.

An Essex firm has been prosecuted after one of its employees suffered life-changing injuries when he fell from a stepladder while spray-painting a lorry.

The 51-year-old man shattered his left shoulder and collar bone, broke several ribs and received a deep cut to his head in the fall.  

The company was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found that the same employee had fallen off a stepladder just one month before the incident, but no action had been taken to improve safety at the site.