Get a 10% discount on the booking fee for the above conference by clicking here and quoting “Scutt10″
During the Christmas break I read an article in The Independent about an increase in the number of “Valium addicts” being created by GPs and it stated
“Doctors are being sued for creating prescription drug addicts amid claims they have failed to follow safety guidelines published more than 20 years ago”
Sponsored Blog Post
Family lawyers often talk about how Christmas gives rise to an upsurge in divorce work in the New Year. The same is probably also true of personal injury work, if to a lesser extent. Claims for personal injury usually involve
The numbers of road traffic accidents increases in the winter with poor light and icy conditions.
Banks are facing a rising tide of stress at work claims, according to Reuters yesterday. The report refers to anecdotal evidence by GQ Employment Lawyers to the effect that the number of “stress related lawsuits” is on the increase, but doesn’t say what type of lawsuits, nor give any statistics to back up the assertion.
Never mind, the Health & Safety Executive’s own statistics for 2010/11 state the following;
“The number of new cases of stress, depression or anxiety has fallen from an estimated 254,000 in 2001/02 to 211,000 [in 2010/11]” *
Guest Post
According to a recent article by no win no fee solicitors agency, First4Lawyers, around 15 people every single hour – that’s 130,000 patients a year – in Britain are admitted to hospital suffering from brain injuries or all severities. With brain injury figures on a steady incline, so too, it would seem, is the instance of third party negligence – like employer and medical negligence (for which many either don’t realise they can or don’t want to claim compensation). It’s fast becoming, therefore, quite apparent that something needs to be done to help prevent the risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Sponsored Post
A personal injury, whether suffered in an accident at work or in a Road Traffic Accident (RTA), or “merely” just a slip or trip in the street can be a serious, even devastating blow. Lives can be significantly impacted by injury, not just in terms of pain and suffering but also loss of earnings, treatment fees and, in the most serious cases, care and adaptations round the home when someone is left disabled as a result.
Sponsored Guest Post
A US railroad company, Metro-North, has been ordered to pay an employee damages in excess of $142,000. In addition, the company must promote him to a senior level as it was concluded that the worker was denied promotion because of a knee injury sustained whilst at work.
Metro-North railroad were found by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to have wrongly classified the injury as being completely unrelated to work, when in fact the injury took place whilst Mr Bill Ordner was on his lunch break.
Last week I read a brief summary about a case where personal injury and family law crashed together in the Court of Appeal . I’ve not read the full case itself and if anyone has the link to it I’d be very interested to read it. It’s a surprising case because one of the parties, Mr Mansfield had suffered serious personal injuries when hit by a car in an accident in 1992 and had been awarded £500,000 for the loss of a leg and serious spinal injuries. The couple got together five years after the award was made to him which, if the remnants of my knowledge of matrimonial law still holds good, means that it was property acquired before the marriage and thus not a matrimonial asset. I’d welcome any comments from any Family lawyers out there reading this who can explain it.
Sponsored Post
According to a piece from The Mirror last Wednesday it is. This is because the government is planning “savage spending cuts” at the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) which will reduce the number of
workplace inspections carried out, thus increasing the risk of personal injuries occurring. The article cites a very sad incident to one worker mortally injured on his last day at work.
Sponsored Post
Have you had an accident or injury at work? If so, what are the basic legal issues you need to know?
There’s a big overlap between the laws of employment and personal injury. For instance, an employee may be able to bring a claim in an Employment Tribunal under the Equality Act in respect of disability discrimination where the employer has failed to make reasonable adjustments or the employee has been subjected to a detriment because of their disability.
On the 6th April next month[1], the government’s new medical certification scheme comes into force replacing the current “Med3” sick note system. It was decided to do away with the scheme because it focussed too much on what employees could not do and not enough on what they could. In other words, a person was either too sick to work, or they were well and it ignored any, temporary or rehabilitative options that there might be to allow the person to remain in work. For instance a person with back ache might be fit to work provided they did no heavy lifting or were allowed to get up and walk about every hour to ease discomfort whilst sitting. With a Med3 that person can’t go to work despite the fact that they could do light duties. The government’s aim, of course, is to reduce the number of days lost to sickness and the number of people from claiming benefit. The government has long been exercised by how to reduce the number of people on long-term sick leave, suffering from chronic conditions and the new “fitness to work” certificate tries to remedy that.