In the past, making a claim for injury through the courts was a long, drawn out process with no real obligation on either party to give the other all the information at their disposal at an early time. People seeking to claim compensation were known as ‘Appellants’ and those who were defending the claims were ‘Defendants’ and all evidence was in the form of ‘Writs’
Lord Woolf created a raft of reforms of the civil legal system aimed at making it easier for people to understand (people making claims are now ‘Claimants’ and their opponents, who are responding to a claim being made against them are ‘Respondents’; evidence is in the form of ‘Statements’) and quicker and cheaper to resolve.
Of course there are still plenty of cases that take years to resolve, involving several experts and witnesses and hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees. But there are far more cases now being dealt with in the ‘fast track’ system that limits the number of experts being instructed, the amount of time to hear the case and the length of the case from issue of proceedings to final hearing.
There are also strict rules about how both parties must conduct themselves before issuing proceedings and during the court case. These are all detailed in Lord Woolf’s Civil Procedure Rules and include the Claimant writing to the Respondent setting out the details of their injury, any treatment received, any details of long-term prognosis and the amount of compensation sought. Some of that information is not possible to give, in the case of an injury where it is not known how long the pain and suffering will last or what the long-term effects will be.
The Respondent has a set time to respond (the Claimant has a set time to claim, set out within the Limitations Acts – typically three years from the date of injury) and both parties must show attempts to resolve the issues before bringing the matter to court. Both parties must also show that they are making efforts to resolve or narrow the issues through negotiation and mediation throughout the proceedings in order to speed everything up.
If an offer is made, Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules means it must be considered seriously. That’s because an offer made under Part 36 links closely to the costs of the case. If a Part 36 offer of, say, £30,000 is made on, say, 1st January 2011, the Claimant rejects it and presses ahead with the court case, then if the court makes its final decision on 1st January 2012 and awards £30,000 or less then the Claimant would have to pay the costs of their solicitors and the Respondent between 1st January 2011 and 1st January 2012. That can be an enormous amount, as it will include the costs of the final hearing itself (typically the highest single cost of the case).
The idea behind this is to ensure that offers are not rejected out of hand for ‘the principle’ of seeing a Respondent defeated in court. It wastes the court’s time and puts both parties through unnecessary proceedings.
All of this means that if you are seeking to make a claim for injury, an awful lot of work will be put in by your Solicitors and those acting for the Respondent to try to resolve the matter – by negotiating, mediating and sharing information – without having to resort to issuing a claim at court. The two issues that need to be resolved are liability (was the Respondent negligent and does he/she admit it?) and the value of the claim (how much is the injury worth, for the pain and suffering, and how much has been lost by the Claimant through time off work etc.). If the case does go to court you can expect negotiation to continue throughout and to have to discuss with your Solicitor very carefully any offers made by the Respondent.
The final hearing will normally take six to nine months after the claim has been made, but this varies enormously depending on the complexity and value of the case. Hopefully the case will have been resolved long before then.
If you have been injured in an accident, you may be entitled to claim compensation. Making a claim with Claim Today Solicitors could be the first step to receiving compensation with no risk of cost and without any deduction from your injury compensation, leaving you with 100% of your compensation claim.
