Do I have a Personal Injury claim?
Posted on 5th February 2020
MG Legal, your Garstang Solicitor, are often asked by people whether they have “a case” or not.
Most often, this is a reference to a case for a personal injury claim, usually arising from some kind of negligence on the part of a third party, whether the driver of a motor vehicle, local authority, supermarket or a medical professional.
Identifying negligence, is the first step in the process and often this can be as simply as showing that a driver hit someone’s stationary vehicle or that safety goggles were not provided to a factory worker (For our blog on employer’s duties to employees, and the Six Pack Regulations, please see here). Sometimes, it is less obvious and requires some research and investigation. What is also needed, however, is that the negligence has caused an injury.
The second phase in the claim is to identify “causation” which is that the negligence has caused some type of injury or loss. The final phase is “quantum”, the amount of damage or loss. The Law in England and Wales is very strict in this regard and these three principles govern personal injury claims rigidly.
A trending news headline currently is that of the Metropolitan Police bodyguard, attached to David Cameron, who reportedly left his gun and two passports, his own and Mr Cameron’s, in an aeroplane toilet. The items were found by another passenger who safely handed them to a member of the crew and the incident was dealt with swiftly and professionally. It is inarguable that the police office was negligent and that he breached his duty of care to the individual he was guarding but more importantly, to the other passengers on the plane.
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It is not uncommon to hear phrases such as “someone could have been seriously injured” which is indeed the case had, say, a child found the gun and believed it to be a toy. Undoubtedly, in that tragic case, there would have been a clear right to make a claim against the Metropolitan Police. However, as the negligence did not lead to any injury, there would be no right to claim for any passengers as whilst they may have been injured in an alternative scenario, this did not occur and so, any Court asked to make an award would find in the Claimant’s favour on the point of negligence (also known as breach of duty) but any award would be zero, in effect rendering the claim unsuccessful.
When making a claim, MG Legal, your Garstang Solicitor, will make every effort to maximise the value of your claim and ensure that all possible losses are recovered to ensure that the total impact of any incident on your life is minimised. What no solicitor can do, however, is work outside the bounds of what happened and whilst most incidents could have resulted in more serious injury, the law only allows recovery of those losses incurred and for those injuries caused by the incident.
Any given case, will have a range of awards or settlements that would be deemed reasonable and of course MG Legal, your Garstang Solicitor, use current case-law, reference materials and positive negotiating skills to ensure the award is as close to the top of that range as possible.
Should you have suffered a personal injury as a result of negligence at the hands of another person, company or medical practitioner, please contact MG Legal to discuss how we can help you. We always look to handle any personal injury claim on a Conditional Fee Agreement (no win, no fee agreement) basis and we have offices in Garstang, Lancaster and Longridge to ensure you have a local office as a point of contact.
Call, email or drop in to any of our offices and MG Legal will discuss your claim with you to get the ball rolling straight away.
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