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Employer’s liability and public liability (EL/PL) claims have undergone unprecedented change in the way they are litigated and managed. Our team understands the issues impacting on the EL/PL market today and we provide clear and proactive advice which goes beyond claims to protect your reputation and your finances.
We assist you to deliver savings whether by the seamless provision of a claims handling service for low value volume claims through the portal, or by targeting the emergence of more diverse, complex and high value claims such as; chronic regional pain syndrome, psychological trauma, and NIHL - all requiring expert legal input. Our EL/PL team work with a diverse range of clients cutting across both the public and private sectors leaving us uniquely placed to maximise risk management, lesson learning, audit, leakage reporting, pre and post litigation management, regulatory assistance and counter fraud techniques to the advantage of both sectors.
We see an integral part of our role as feeding back risk management information that we acquire in the course of our defence of claims so that this can be utilised to your benefit.
These were the opening remarks of Mr Justice Martin Spencer when handing down his Judgment in the recent case of Andrew Chell v Tarmac Cement and Lime Limited [2020] EWHC 2613, the latest in a series of appeals dealing with the scope of vicarious liability.
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Guest writer, Finch Consulting Senior Consultant Teli Chinelis applies his expertise in preparing engineering reports in relation to noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) claims to explain information that is required from the claimant and information that is required and is advisable to be retained by employers, in order to ensure that claims can be fairly represented.
We were hoping to be able to give you some interesting insights following the judgment of X v Kuoni Travel Ltd but that will have to wait for another day.
As part of the SRA’s ‘Looking to the Future’ programme, from November 2019 solicitors who provide reserved legal activities who wish to practise on their own have the option to go freelance. Freelance solicitors will be a new class of solicitor.
The firm presents itself impeccably and has admirable capabilities - individuals within the team are clearly immensely knowledgeable.
I have been very impressed with the team at Browne Jacobson – they have good work, sound judgement and are efficient.
The claimant suffered a fractured spine whilst on an away day boat trip in the Bristol Channel. She missed the two-year limitation period for accidents at sea so brought a claim against the employer rather than the boat company. Acting for the employer, we brought contribution proceedings against the boat company, which were defended on the basis that limitation had expired. We lost at first instance but we successfully appealed on the point to the Court of Appeal. The case was followed by Professor McGee, the leading textbook author on limitation, because the outcome would cause a chapter of his book to be re-written. Our success resulted in a substantial saving for our client.
The claimant, a senior carer, chose to climb onto a resident’s bed to drag-lift him towards the head of the bed. In doing so she sustained an injury to her hip and alleged that her injuries would prevent her from working in a similar role in the future. The claimant alleged that her employer, our client, was negligent and in breach of its obligations under regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 as she ought to have been provided with a mechanical aide to assist in the manual handling task. We secured evidence of the claimant’s training and the course material to show that she had received adequate training in safe manual handling techniques and that the risks had been properly assessed and reduced. The claim was dismissed and we recovered our client’s costs in full.
The claimant, 'R' attended our client’s venue to attend a concert, during which she slipped on a spilt drink whilst Bjork was on stage. At the initial trial, the judge found that the defendant 'W' was liable under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. In particular the judge found that our client was in breach of its duty for not preventing people from taking drinks into the venue to watch the concert and for not having a system in place to guard the entrances to the venue to prevent drinks from being taken in. Knowing the effect of the judgment on subsequent events organised by our client we advised them to appeal the decision on the basis that the judge had failed to apply the correct balance between risk and response. On appeal, the Honourable Mrs Justice Slade DBE agreed with our proposition that the judge had failed to set the correct balance. The first instance judgment was set aside and the appellant court found for our client and the claimant was ordered to pay our costs of both the initial trial and the appeal.
The extent of vicarious liability has been tested by the courts again and this time in relation to employees engaging in horseplay and practical jokes.
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In Rogerson v Bolsover District Council (2019) the Court of Appeal found against a local authority landlord pursuant to the Defective Premises Act 1972 following a finding of an inadequate inspection regime.
In The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v Brown [2018], the High Court ruled that a Circuit Judge was wrong to automatically apply QOCS protection to a claim for misuse of data which also included a claim for personal injury.
In May 2018 I prepared a blog entitled ‘small claims u-turn?’ after the Justice Select Committee called on the government to put the ex-Chancellor George Osborne’s plans to raise the small claims limit for personal injury claims and prohibit awards of general damages for minor soft tissue injuries on hold whilst the past five years of reforms are evaluated.
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