child has his personal injury case listed for county court?

micky_007

hi
my child was in car accident and now the case is been listed in the county court.
Does our child have to give evidence or what happens?
does the driver of the other car be there?
the other driver is saying there was a crash,but not that serious,so they are admitting liability but not causation.
my child has seen doctors after the accident and more since then.

my solicitor said to me time ago that they normally settle before trial,but now we have a date and my solicitor is off work!
thanks for any information.

OnanTheBarbarian

How old is the child?

Sounds like a "low velocity impact" defence is being run by the other side. These defences usually fail if you have medical evidence saying the injuries arose from the collision and there is no evidence to suggest you are lacking in credibility/ proof of you exaggerating/ being a big fibber.

Often they never make it as far as the court room.

micky_007

but if it makes the court room,does the child (10 years old) have to give evidence or does the person who crashed into them have to there evidence?

FutureGirl

The evidence would surely be the medical documents in this case.

micky_007

but would the person who crashed into them have to go to the county court?they admitted the crash,but said it was only a light crash.

Vikipollard

Can't answer your question in full, but after I was hit in a low impact crash, the defendant went the same route as is happening to your child.


I got a date for Court, and the day before I was due to go they upped the amount of compensation to a proper level, so we never ended up going.


Only reason for posting was to show it is not impossible that they will take it right to the wire to see if you will give in, but may also not want to risk losing and picking up Court costs as well.

OnanTheBarbarian

micky_007 wrote: »

but if it makes the court room,does the child (10 years old) have to give evidence or does the person who crashed into them have to there evidence?

No, a 10 year old is not going to have to give evidence at a hearing, he will need to attend as the odds are the hearing will end up turning into an infant approval hearing, where the judge will end up approving a financial settlement.

If it really does go ahead as a trial on the issue of causation, the other driver may well attend to give evidence and I would submit that evidence from the other adults who were in the car with the child would be called upon.

The medical evidence is the primary evidence here and unless you all come across as a bunch of low life types with zero credibility, the claim is unlikely to fail.

Just be guided by your solicitor on this.

micky_007

does it cost much to actually take a child through the whole "going to court " process?
I mean would they save much settling it the day before?

OnanTheBarbarian

As the case has court proceedings going on anyway, it will now be mandatory for the court to approve the actual settlement as per CPR Part 21.

But yes, if the other side had not obstructed settlement, it could have been possible to agree settlement of the claim without the need to involve the courts. Pretty typical insurer behaviour I'm afraid.

micky_007

what do they hope to gain waiting to the last min or even bring a case to trial when there was an accident and injuries?
thank god the injuries have settled down since the accident and were not pretending the child is worse than he is.
so if the defendant says it was slight accident and no one could of been hurt,will they have to go in front of the judge and say all this crap on the day of court?

OnanTheBarbarian

They may have to, much depends on whether the legal team for the other side decide it remains a good idea or not

My personal experience as an injury lawyer dealing with road accident claims all day long, is that low velocity impact defences rarely work for the insurers and 99% of the time, the hearing never goes ahead.

Insurers and common sense are rarely on the same page I'm afraid