Accidents & Injury

If you are starting a commercial or industrial business and are employing people, you're legally obliged to notify your local Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector or local authority. If your business involves manufacturing or processing or providing a service such as dry cleaning or telephone repairs, ring HSE's Infoline (tel. 0845 345 0055) and they will send you a form to complete. If your business is a shop, office, restaurant, hotel, launderette or residential home, your local authority's environmental health department will send you a form. If you are in doubt as to who to register with, telephone the HSE's Infoline.

1. The Health and Safety Law poster/leaflet
2. The location of first aiders and the first aid box
3. The location of the accident book
4. The health and safety policy document

You must undertake a risk assessment of the premises and identify any significant risks which may arise. These may include, for example, the potential for a major escalating fire, explosion, building collapse, pollution incident and/or bomb threat. Once these major risks which may result in serious and or imminent danger have been identified, a formal emergency procedure must be produced.

The procedure should set out the role, identity and responsibilities of the competent persons nominated to implement the action. The procedure should normally be written down, clearly setting out the limits of action to be taken by all employees. In particular, work shouldn't be resumed after an emergency if serious danger remains.

Employer's liability insurance isn't required to cover employees who are based abroad. However, do check the law in the country where they are based and find out if it requires you to take out insurance or carry out any other measures to protect your employees. If any employee is normally based abroad but spends more than 14 days continuously in Great Britain or more than seven days on an offshore installation, then employer's liability insurance will be required under English law.

Personal injury covers all situations where a person claims compensation from someone else who has caused him bodily injury. The injury can be physical or mental, and if the person dies, a claim can sometimes be made on their behalf.

First decide who is responsible for your injury, in law. You will have to analyse your case and think: who acted negligently? Who breached the contract? You may have to do some fact-finding before you come to an answer. You may even have to obtain the opinion of an expert in the relevant field before you can pinpoint who has done wrong or caused you the injury. You may have to do some legal research into breaches of statutory duty. Most of the time, however, the question of liability will be easily answered. Don't forget, however, that you only have limited time to find out who is liable, and to bring a claim against them.

The next question: is there anyone else who may also be liable? There may be more than one person who is responsible for your injury. Not only do you have limited time in which to bring your claim, but the court may not allow you to bring a second claim against a different person relating to the same injury if the first one fails. Suing everyone at the same time in one claim also keeps down the costs.

You, as the 'claimant' (the person who has suffered the injury), must prove that the 'defendant' (the person or company said to have caused the personal injury) acted unlawfully. This doesn't mean necessarily that the defendant was committing a crime or acting 'illegally'. Instead, the claimant must prove that the defendant was either negligent, or in breach of contract or in breach of a statutory duty (see below), or caused the injury by assault and battery, harassment or false imprisonment. Each of these is known as a 'cause of action'. The claimant must also prove that the defendant's unlawful behaviour caused injury or financial loss.

From time to time, Acts of Parliament create 'statutory duties' which are added to the list of causes of action (see above). Of course, some of these duties are designed to create criminal offences, and compensation or damages are not directly available for breach of such a duty. However, many other duties, if breached, create a 'civil liability', i.e. compensation by way of damages which will be awarded by the courts. If you, acting as claimant, use a statutory duty as a cause of action, you must be careful to bring the court's attention to the particular statute or set of regulations and prove that it applies to your case. You must then prove that the defendant has, by his action or inaction, breached the duty and that this has resulted in your injury and loss.

Claims for damages for personal injury must be made within three years. The time runs either from the date the injury was sustained, or from the date you realise you have that injury. These can differ if, for example, you are claiming damages for an illness, the symptoms of which do not become apparent for a number of years.

Yes you can. The Motor Insurers Bureau is an organisation set up by insurance companies and the Government to compensate people who have been injured by uninsured drivers. Visit their website for more information: www.mib.org.uk.

In some circumstances, a landlord may be liable for defects on the property rented out which cause personal injury to his tenants (and in some cases to others, lawfully at the property). Most arrangements relating to residential property create a lease (whether oral or written) and a relationship of landlord and tenant is created. The landlord's duty in relation to hazards on the property or to the condition of the property depends on whether the defects arose due to his own positive actions, and whether the defects occurred before the lease was created or while you were in situ.

Where appropriate, the court can issue a witness summons, compelling somebody to give evidence. Ask the court to issue the summons, and if your neighbour refuses to comply, they could be fined or even imprisoned for contempt of court.

They are claiming that by your actions, you were partly to blame for your injuries. If the court agrees, any damages you receive will be lowered to reflect the extent of your responsibility for the incident.

Yes you can. The courts ignore insurance payouts, and consider the liability between you and the person who injured you. You may have to repay your insurance company for any payouts made eventually, however.

When assessing whether the defendant professional or hospital has been negligent, the court will look carefully at the mistake made. There may have been a misdiagnosis, wrongful treatment, poorly executed procedure, poor nursing standards or other failure to take care of the patient's health. The court will ask itself the question, 'Has the professional shown the ordinary skill and care expected of a competent professional in the same field in his treatment or care of the patient?' In other words, the healthcare professional will be judged by the standard of his peers.

The law doesn't expect healthcare workers to perform miracles. Normally, a healthcare worker in the same field as the defendant will be called as an expert witness to help the court assess whether the defendant's actions were competent. Where a procedure or treatment divides medical opinion, the law will not criticise and hold liable a healthcare professional for using a controversial method, as long as that method is recognised by a respectable body of medical opinion.

When someone dies as a result of an accident, there are two relevant causes of action which arise:

1. A claim can be brought by the deceased's executors for the personal injury suffered prior to the deceased's death (including those sustained in the fatal accident itself). Any award of damages will be paid into the deceased's estate to be distributed according to the Will or under the rules of intestacy.
2. A claim can me made by the deceased's dependants for their own losses arising from the deceased's death.

The first stage is to find the names and addresses of those who might be able to help you. The potential witnesses may be people known to you, they may be passers-by who offer to help, or they may have given their details to the police. Indeed, if the police attended the scene, you should write to the relevant police station asking for the official police report (a small fee will be charged). The second stage is to find out whether the witnesses (a) have any useful evidence to give, and (b) are willing to give evidence. If willing, the witness should be asked to write down what he or she saw or heard. The third stage is for the witness to provide evidence to the court in the form of a 'witness statement'.

There are various organisations that provide free advice to litigants. Often this will take the form of initial advice on the merits of a claim and help with filling in forms. Citizens Advice Bureaux are staffed by lawyers and volunteers and can be found in town centres and sometimes at help desks in the courts. Legal Advice Centres serve a similar function and are staffed by qualified and trainee solicitors and barristers. It may be that in special cases a solicitors' firm, or barrister instructed through a solicitor, will agree to represent a litigant pro bono, in other words, for free. It may also be worth checking to see if the students at the law faculty of a local university or law college run a Student Advice Centre.

A firm or partnership, unlike a company, is not a legal entity separate from its members. An individual partner will therefore be personally liable:

1. for his own wrongful acts; and
2. for the wrongful acts of his co-partners committed in the normal course of the firm's business; and
3. for the wrongful acts of the employees of the partnership committed while acting in the course of their employment.

Where the partners are defendants under (1) or (2) above they are sued in the name of the firm (i.e. the claimants are expressed to be ''Thompson, Thompson and Smythe', a firm'). Only those partners who were partners at the time of the act complained of will be held liable.

A claim begins when it is 'issued' by the court. You, as the claimant, ask the court to do this by filling in a Claim Form, Form N1 and giving details of the claim in a Particulars of Claim. You must also include a copy of any medical expert's report you intend to rely on and a schedule of past and future expenses and losses claimed (also known as a 'schedule of special damages').

Consider whether you have a defence to the Claim. You will probably be able to agree some facts (e.g. you might agree with the claimant that you were both involved in an accident on 8 December 2004). The more that's agreed between the parties the less there is for the judge to decide and the more focus there will be on the important issues that are really in dispute. It's important to deal with each allegation separately as it creates clarity. The Defence (Form N9D) should set out your version of events clearly. You will also have to tell the court if you accept the sums claimed as 'special damages' (losses and expenses claimed by the claimant up to the date of trial, i.e. not his or her future losses).

It's possible to agree certain matters without prejudicing your defence.

Once the Claim and Defences have been filed, the preparation for trial begins. However, one shortcut avoiding full trial is available where the case put forward by one of the parties is so weak that it's bound to fail at trial. A party, either the claimant or defendant, can ask the court to look at the evidence filed and 'give judgment' there and then at the preliminary hearing.

In some circumstances the judge may decide, without being asked, that the Claim or Defence should be 'struck out'. This may be because the papers filed by the claimant or defendant don't show that there's a reason for bringing or defending the Claim. Alternatively, a judge may decide that one of the parties is bound to fail at trial and there is no other reason for trial. In that case, the parties will be told to attend a hearing or take other steps (such as amend their statement of case or provide more information).

There are no rules of court dress for anyone representing themself in court. Lawyers and judges, however, will wear dark suits and in open court will usually be robed and be wearing wigs.

A potential claim between parties may be settled in a contract before court proceedings are begun, or in a 'compromise' or 'settlement' after proceedings have started, at any time before the judge has given judgment (thus a settlement may be reached even after the judge has heard all the evidence and closing speeches!). Judges will often assist parties by giving them time to negotiate if it looks as though there are real prospects of a deal being struck.