Work Accident Claim Concerns

Accident at Work Laws

Your first question after suffering an accident at work should not be about whether or not you should file a work accident claim, but whether or not you sustained an injury and if so, if it could seriously affect your life.

It is only after answering this question and after recovering from your injury, if you did have one, that the idea of filing an accident at work should enter your mind. This is important to observe and to maintain because there are certain conditions that must be proved when filing an accident at work claim in order for it to be successful, conditions that cannot be evidenced immediately after your accident.

Simply put, these conditions are that you are really injured, that your injury resulted from an accident, that this accident occurred at work, and that it was one which was caused by the negligence of your employer.

A good question to raise, then, if you want to file an accident at work claim as can be inferred from the above conditions is the following one: was the accident your fault or not? And in order to determine the answer, you might want to look at accident at work laws, such as The Workplace Regulations 1992.

Your Personal Injury Solicitor

It is strange but true that many people desirous of filing a work accident claim do not contact personal injury lawyers immediately and first try to take on the whole burden of claiming on their own shoulders. This is inspiring, to be sure, since such a decision reveals no less than a liberal, confident, and self-dependent character, one that society needs and is possessed by many great leaders in history.

In the present situation, however, such an honorable character is misplaced and becomes a stumbling block to getting a just compensation. To begin with, claiming compensation is not a commonsensical matter even if it relies on logic and precision. It is, in other words, a problem of logic but a specialized one. The jargon and accepted practices that make up the whole claiming process is a highly specialized one, requiring citations from British jurisprudence, the provision of evidence, and knowledge of how to write formal legal letters. As such, only professional lawyers know of them and are vested with the power and responsibility to study them and use them for their clients.

The problem then of assuming self-dependence in claiming is that it fallaciously assumes that hard work and effort is enough to not only survive but emerge victorious in a process that requires, aside from these, specialized knowledge.

No Win No Fee London: The Rationale

The explanation for why No win no fee London Compensation Claims exist is technically because of the signing of the Conditional Fee Agreement in 2000. According to this law, claimants and personal injury lawyers can agree to take on the claimant’s case on the No Win No Fee basis. This scheme allows the personal injury lawyer to process the claimant’s case on the understanding that should the case win or lose, the claimant will not have to pay him his hourly fees. 

In case the claim wins, moreover, he can charge his hourly fees on the defendant instead. This amount is different from the compensation he will have to pay the claimant, that is to say, is separate from it. The hourly fees payment will, thus, not be deducted from what the claimant will receive.

Yet to look at this explanation as the only answer is to understand the letter of the law but to miss its spirit. The other, perhaps more important, answer as to why No Win No Fee Compensation Claims exist is because the government, seeing that there are claimants whose cases have strong merits, but are nevertheless incapable of filing them because off financial constraints, have decided to enact a law that will enable them to have their claims finally represented and by high-caliber lawyers at that. 

Compensation claims on this basis, therefore, exist because the government desires to materialize social justice and equity.

No Win No Fee Litigation: How to Deal with Your Other Expenses

The subject of whether or not the claimant has to pay his personal injury lawyer on the no win no fee litigation basis is a common one. The quick answer is No. This is because whatever happens to the claim, whether it prospers or gets dismissed, the claimant will be spared from having to pay his personal injury lawyer’s hourly fees.

This does not mean, however, that the personal injury lawyer will not receive any hourly fees at all. In case the claim gets dismissed, he will not receive any; nevertheless, if the claim gets honored, the defendant will pay his hourly fees, aside from the compensation being demanded by the claimant. A terrible prospect, to say the least.

In addition, the claimant, although he need not pay his personal injury lawyer’s hourly fees whether he wins or loses, is still not free from the obligation of paying other things. For example, in the No Win No Fee Agreement, he will still have to pay for his medical bills and hospitalization, police records, and other related expenses, that is to say, the expenses related to the securing of evidence. Aside from these, he will also be compelled to pay the defendant, through what is called the “After-the-Event” insurance, in case the claim loses.

A Sober Look at the No Win No Fee Scheme

Can the No Win No Fee Compensation Scheme really match up to the hype its supporters parade it with? Can it truly act as the legal panacea that will cure all problems in litigations many concerned British citizens are plagued by today?

In order to answer this question, we must first define what the No Win No Fee Scheme is and how it can materialize in an actual claim. To begin with, suppose we have a person, let us designate him as Mr. A, who in his misfortune not only got involved in a car crash that he did not cause, but also incurred back injuries from it. Now, in a moment of reflective vindictiveness, he decided not to shower any obloquy or contumelies on the person who was responsible for the crash, Mrs. B, and opted instead to demand an accident claim from her.

To continue, an accident claim is a formal demand addressed to the defendant (in this case Mrs. B) asking for monetary compensation for the injuries sustained by the prosecutor. If the defendant agrees to the accident claim and thinks it is valid, then he or she can pay the prosecutor and the matter is settled. If, however, she thinks the demand is unwarranted or unjust, then she can rebut the claim and the case is taken to the court, in which case a legal dispute commences and ends only when the court pens a decision.

The first thing we need to point out in the hypothetical situation above is that cases can and do get resolved even without the No Win No Fee Scheme. That is because it is not a necessity, but only a possibility. Under this scheme, the personal injury lawyer of the claimant can offer his or her legal services for free by not requiring the claimant to pay his or her hourly fees whether the case wins or gets dismissed. This is because in case the claim wins, the opposing side will provide his or her hourly fees as part of the monetary compensation they will be forced to supply to the claimant. In case the claim gets dismissed, however, the personal injury lawyer will not ask to be paid anything at all (no win, no fee).

To be sure, this quaint offer appears to be a wholly positive development. However, it does have several disadvantages alongside its advantages. First, since much more is at stake under this scheme—the solicitor’s reputation, hourly fees payment, and energy— it is quite difficult to find lawyers who will accept cases on this basis unless they are unusually airtight. Second, if a claim does get accepted on this basis but loses, then the claimant will have to pay the expenses of the defendant through what is called an After-the-Event insurance, something his or her personal injury lawyer will help him or her prepare as the case begins.

On the other hand, there are also two advantages of the No Win No Fee Scheme. First, if the case gets accepted, then the claimant can rest assured that, from the eyes of an experienced lawyer, his or her case does have strong merits. Finally, in case the claim is honored, not only will the claimant receive compensation, but he or she will also forbear having to pay the personal injury lawyer’s hourly fees.

Thus, it’s not a marketing ploy—just as much as it’s not a legal cure-all. The most that can be said about it is that it is a real option, which like all genuinely real options, are accompanied by its personal advantages and disadvantages.