advice please - pensioner's injury

smellymel74

apologies if this is the wrong thread for this - it was the closest match i could find!

i could use some advice regarding personal injury and socilitors. last week while shopping in a well-known supermarket, a woman pushing one of those giant cages for stacking shelves ran into the back of my unsuspecting pensioner mum and sent her flying. she was rushed to hospital where she had 4 stitches in her ankle and now she can't walk or drive as her ankle is swollen and black and blue. the supermarket manager apologised and put the accident in the store's accident book but she hasn't heard anything more.

my mum has never had any kind of injury claim and is, to be honest, a bit clueless on such matters but i advised her to look into making a claim. she went to a local solicitors for a free consultation and was told that she had a 95% chance of winning the case and that if she did win, the solicitor would claim their fees back from the supermarket so she wouldn't have to pay anything. the solicitor also suggested she may need plastic surgery to correct the wound on her ankle and asked if she'd be happy to go through with this. my mum said she didn't think that's be necessary but the solcitor seemed keen to get her to agree to it, which i think is an unnecessary procedure - certainly the hospital doctors never mentioned anything about needing corrective surgery.

my mum understood this to be a 'no win, no fee' type arrangement but some letters have arrived from the solicitor that suggest otherwise and i'm unsure whether this is standard practice or something more dubious.

the letter asks my mum to sign a medical authority to release her medical recordsread and sign the firm's Conditional Fee Agreement documents. iy closes with the line "if the claim is sucessful, our basic fees and the success fee should be recovered from the defendents."

however, later in the extensive documentation, i noticed the following lines:

"if you win your claim or win a pre-action application, you pay our basic charges, our disbursements and a success fee. You can claim from your opponant part or all of our basic fee, our disbursements, a success fee and insurance premium"

"If you receive provisional damages, we are entitled to payment of our basic charges, our disbursements and success fee at that point."

"If you lose, you pay your opponant's charges and disbursements. You may be liable to take out an insurance policy against this risk. If you lose, you do not pay our charges but we may require you to pay our distributions."

she hasn't signed any of the forms yet. Can some one please tell me whether this is standard practice in personal injury situations and whether it sounds like it's worth going with these solicitors?

i have no experience of these thkngs either but have heard horror stories of people winning such cases and being awarded £500 then having to pay solicitors fees of £1000!

thanks for your help!!!

dogbot

The claim will be handled by the supermarkets public liability insurer (chances are they will be self insured to some degree but the claims handled by an insurer... anyway). Write to the supermarket head office and mark it "Insurance Department" or "Public Liability Claims".

Dan makes an excellent point, exactly what do you want?

I would say that the solicitor is trying to encourage treatment so the claim costs and so their fees go up - it is a nasty thing that hopefully a minority of solicitors are known to do. It is good to know your mother isn’t just out to make a quick buck out of the situation, but she certainly should be due some help for the loss suffered.

These are just examples of things that might be needed, you must make up your own minds in your situation: It seems she could do with (or rather, would typically awarded by a court if it went that far) some compensation for the loss caused by the company's negligence, and then of course any necessary treatment costs. Then you have things that tend to be called something like special damages: some help with costs of alternative transport while she can't drive - so agreement to pay any taxi fares until recover for example?, some help around the house so something to cover those costs as necessitated e.g. gardening or cleaning. Finally, has she incurred any other expenses – e.g. couldn’t go on a holiday that wasn’t insured?

The insurer will be very keen to deal with you direct, since this saves them lots of legal fee costs, but you should just be careful to be clear about what your mother NEEDS and what she wants/would like in terms of compensation and treatment.

lisyloo

I certainly would not be keen for a solicitor to decide on treatment and I have to say that my gut reaction is that I don't like this one.
It's up to a doctor or consultant to suggest what may be best for your mum.
A scar might be more preferably for a pensioner whereas a young person who heals quicker might be prepared to put up with short term pain for longer term gain.
The health professionals are definitely the correct people to discuss treatment with.

Be very careful about what you are liable for.
Check all the small print.
In some cases these contracts can leave you liable for costs as suggested by Dan.
My MIl had a successful case, but the contract did leave her open to liability for costs.

Does your mum have legal cover on her home insurance?
This is an alternative route where she might have no liability at all for costs.

dogbot

Should just add - the fact that the incident was recorded in the stores accident book should help a lot, since thsi proves that it happened. Any other witnesses would help!

Agreed with lisyloo - especialy about legal cover with home insurance.

smellymel74

thanks to you all for your great advice. yes, i certainly got the impression the solicitor was keen to get mum to agree to at least the potential prospect of surgery simply to bump up the claim and, hence their fees. that put me off right away.

writing to the supermarket's insurance department first would also seem like a good idea. i think the immediate concern is how she manages day to day while she's immobile. for starters, she's a carer for her partner so not being able to waddle around makes that difficult and not being able to drive means she can't go shopping or collect his regular presecriptions, for example. and of course if there are any treatment costs, though i imagine she'd be covered for those by the NHS and her pensioner's free prescriptions.

she's certainlny not out to make a quick buck, more just to ensure she's not put out in the short term, although i think she should also be marginally compensated for the pain and inconvenience caused. i had no idea this could be done without her using a solicitor though.

from your advice, my feeling is she should not use a solicitor. she hasn't yet signed anything but obviously has spoken to a solicitor about this and the letter they've sent states they charge £200/hour so i'm worried that even if she goes not further with it through them, she may be liable to pay them for their time to date - would that be the case?

thanks so much to you all.:T

lisyloo

i had no idea this could be done without her using a solicitor though.

The problem is that your mum will have no idea how to "value" her pain and suffering, so she could get a rubbish offer (that's standard to start with) and she would have no idea whether it's rubbish or not.
She also has no idea what it's reasonable to claim.

My MIL had a cut on her leg (from the sharp edge of a tool box).
Because of her advanced years it took months to heal and she had a lot of pain.
She got £4K mostly just for pain and suffering.

so i'm worried that even if she goes not further with it through them, she may be liable to pay them for their time to date - would that be the case?

Don't know, but you are right to be concerned.
You need to establish what happens if she looses (unlikely but you still need to know).
Also what happens if your solicitors fees exceed what is awarded. This is more likely because a lot of solicitors put in big bills.
My MILs paperwork said she could be required to pay if there was a shortfall and this was good solicitor in Bristol and not an ambulance chaser.
In the end she wasn't but I'm 100% sure there was some potential liability in the paperwork.

Personally I would be checking for any insurance she already has (house insurance), but on the other hand, these "no win no fee" people tend to be very voracious as they want things settled to get their fee, so it's swings and roundabouts.
But DO make sure you know what the liability is.

I can't see you MIL losing, but it's quite possible the solicitor will submit fees and the other side offer 70% - that seems to be how it works.

geri1965_2

I think she should get a solicitor, but be careful about which firm she goes with.

You could try sending a PM to Crazy Jamie or SolicitorMidlands - they will be able to recommend a firm who will guarantee that she will not be liable for any charges, even if she loses the case (which seems unlikely).

I wish they would be a bit more careful with those trolleys, I have almost been hit by them twice in recent weeks!

dacouch

Does your mother have Legal Expenses cover on her home insurance, if she does and they agree the chances of the claim being successful they will often underwrite the solicitors costs and source a reputable solicitor for her

Crazy_Jamie

Sine clarification to begin with. A Conditional Fee Agreement is just what it says on the tin; you are only liable for their fees on the condition that they win. However, in the vast majority of cases the loser will pay the winner's costs. So the point is that if you win you are liable for their costs, but in practice these will often be recovered from the other side. If you lose you are not liable for your solicitors' fees, but are liable for the other side's. This is a risk, but in practice your solicitor should look at taking out ATE (After The Event) insurance for you to protect from these fees. If you win the insurance premium is actually recoverable, so even with this insurance you still will likely not pay anything out in costs if you win. 'Disbursements' are fixed fees such as money for a medical report, insurance premiums (as with the ATE insurance) and so on, and forms part of the costs of both sides.

"If you receive provisional damages, we are entitled to payment of our basic charges, our disbursements and success fee at that point."

Provisional damages are used when the Claimant has a condition that may worsen in future, thereby entitling them to further damages. A judgment figure in personal injury litigation is the end of the matter in most cases, but provisional damages are used where a condition could develop and worsen, thereby requiring further damages to be paid out. Provisional damages will not be applicable to your mother's situation so don't worry about them; they are only there out of completeness.

Can some one please tell me whether this is standard practice in personal injury situations and whether it sounds like it's worth going with these solicitors?

The agreement sounds fairly standard to me. However, I am slightly concerned that the solicitors were talking about the prospect of plastic surgery for your mother. They are not qualified to be making such a suggestion, and as this accident happened last week it is far too early to be considering the impact of possible scarring and plastic surgery. It just doesn't sound like a professional approach to me, so I'd be wary.

As geri said, if you want to PM me to talk about possible reputable solicitor firms to instruct, then by all means go ahead. I always recommend that people go on recommendations from friends or family as to choice of solicitor, as my knowledge of local firms (many of which are perfectly fine) is limited. However, if you don't have anyone who can recommend such firms to you, I can offer viewpoints on some of the larger firms.