FAQs about Negligence Claims

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW WITH A NEGLIGENCE CLAIM

  • In a negligence claim, general  damages is a compensation for harm caused by carelessness. The court decides this by asking whether or not the defendant owed a duty of care to the claimant.
  • If you sustained an injury in the course of your employment, on the road, or at home you may be able to claim compensation on condition that the other party has been negligent.
  • Compensation includes loss of earnings, care and medical costs, psychological damage, and loss of amenities of life.
  • The general rule for negligence claims is that they need to be made within three years from sustaining the injury.
  • If the claim is made outside the permitted time, it will be barred and therefore you will be unable to get compensation.
  • However, in some circumstances, for example for people under the age of 18 years, the three year limitation starts running on the claimant’s eighteenth birthday. People with mental incapacity can make claims throughout their whole life.
  • In cases of clinical negligence, the limitation period starts from the time when the harm was first discovered. This means that the doctors can be found negligent after many years from the defective medical treatment.
  • Judges have power to overrule the time limits is some special circumstances.
  • There are three elements that must be present in order to establish negligence.
  1. A person will be liable only if he is under a legal duty to take care for the person who is injured
  2. That person must be in breach of that duty; and
  3. As a result, the victim sustained provable  loss caused by the negligence

What is Occupiers liability ?

In straightforward terms, this relates to potential liability for accidents and injuries sustained by visitors to properties. The extent of potential liability depends on whether the visitor is an invited visitor or an uninvited visitor i.e trespassor.

This is a statutory are of law, with the position on lawful visitors governed by the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 and trespassers by the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984.

“Occupier” is an important definition under both Acts referred to above. In the legal sense it means whoever is in control of the place visited, and this in turn has a wide scope such as to include not only houses, shops, industrial units, theme parks but also ships, scaffolding and other less obvious examples.

The duty placed upon the Occupier under the 1957 Act relating to invited visitors  is a “duty of care to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that the visitor will be reasonably safe in using the premises for the purpose for which he is invited or permitted to be there..”. The Act specifically states that occupiers must take into account also that children are likely to be less careful than adults when visiting.

Any warning signs placed on premises should be very specific, such as “Wet floor” or “Danger of death – electricity” and such like.

As regards the 1984 Act and trespassers. In this case, the occupier only owes a duty if:

  • He is aware of the danger.
  • He knows or has reasonable ground to believe that the person is in the vicinity of the danger.
  • He should be reasonably expected to offer the person some protection.