Former
Labour Lord Chancellor Jack Straw is continuing his attacks on Personal Injury
victims and their lawyers. In his most recent outburst this week he seems to
suggest that all victims, medical experts and lawyers are fraudsters saying –
“An imaginative personal injury lawyer in league with an
imaginative medical professional would just offer an alternative diagnosis, so
the problem would move from whiplash to, say, lower back pain.”
This is in
relation to proposals by the Ministry of Justice to increase the small claims
limit for whiplash cases to £5,000 thus taking most of such claims outside legal
representation. Straw has called for this to be applied across all Personal Injury
cases. It is difficult to imagine a more ill conceived statement.
Firstly it
is disturbingly misleading to suggest that all involved in claims are crooks! It
is agreed on all sides that a small percentage of claims are not genuine. The
figure is in the region of 7% -
All sides
need to work together to eliminate such cases. But the vast majority are
genuine and honest victims. How on earth will that figure be reduced by making
it harder for them to get justice? And how will the courts deal with serious
allegations of fraud via the Small Claims court which is really designed for straightforward
consumer disputes? As soon as fraud is alleged the case would be taken out of
that court in any event.
To read his
comments you would think that insurers do not already fight bogus claims. Of
course they do. Under the current system they are entitled to contest any
medical evidence produced for the claimant and to obtain their own. Interestingly
a former President of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL) takes a similar
view –
What is
worrying is that Mr. Straw is a high profile figure and his comments, however
bizarre, are widely reported and add to the myth that it is victims of
accidents who are responsible for higher insurance premiums.
All Legal Law Blogspot is a legal law guest blogging and legal article submission service by lawyers & legal professionals. Maximised for SEO & social media exposure. Register now and start blogging today.
ReplyDelete