Croftons Injury Claims

Referral Fees: Decisions of Government need to be based upon facts and reason; not lies by the liability insurers and associated groups fed through the media.

The Justice Minister, Jonathan Djanogly, is plainly wrong and indicts the vast majority of bonafide victims of accidents in stating ”many of the claims are spurious and only happen because the current system allows too many people to profit from minor accidents and incidents”. He seeks to juxtapose this by stating that honest motorists were seeing their premiums hiked as a result of evermore compensation claims. In terms of accidents in the workplace, the number of claims have dropped significantly over the past decade.

Mr Djanogly goes on to say “it’s small businesses being afraid of litigation, of being put out of business by litigation, it’s larger companies who are often self-insured having to put up their prices and then it goes to schools not wanting to send children on school trips because they are afraid of litigation” You may well think this until it’s your father, sister or son who is unable to work for a lengthy period and is not paid as a result of an injury in the workplace that could have been avoided if simple protective equipment or training had been provided. Business has to build in for other forms of regulations, such as those regulated by the FSA, trade or professional bodies. It is perfectly reasonable and sensible that business builds in for the cost of proper health and safety systems. Why should the shareholders and directors of a business enjoy higher profits/remuneration as the expense of providing proper protective equipment, quality training, and good systems of work for their workforces?

If schools are afraid of litigation, they need to acknowledge that their fears, like many phobias, are not necessarily rational. There are many sensible and simple steps that schools can take to protect children on school trips. As a parent of young children, I see absolutely no reason why schools feel this way.

When responding to how the Ministry of Justice is seeking to ban all referral fees when the Government themselves admit there is no universal definition of what constitutes a referral fee, Mr Djanogly has said that finding a definition was a “challenge” for him. The Justice Minister rather oversimplifies matters referring to it as a challenge. Even if a definition can be brought about, how does the Justice Minister reconcile this with the open market we are supposed to be operating in and restrictive trade practices? One suspects that his comments are more of an attempt to gain popularity rather than him having any sensible idea as to how to move forward.

I am confident that anybody who is a stakeholder in the personal injury sector would be very happy to have a rational and sensible debate about how cases are presented, how costs can be kept to minimum, how fraud can be avoided, but still ensure that the majority of Claimants who are entirely genuine have the access to justice that they require. How can we have a sensible debate however when the Government is choosing to listen to only what they want to hear, basing its decisions upon fallacies and, by its own admission, doesn’t know how it’s going to bring about a change?!

Simon Leighton, Managing Partner

Posted on 09.09.11

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