Liability and Car Hire Dispute

Today we sent our client a cheque for £5,600.00 after settling a claim for Personal Injury where liability was in dispute despite CCTV footage of the accident clearly showing the Defendant to be at fault.

The Defendant and his insurers (Direct Line) continued to dispute liability and wanted our client to accept 50% responsibility for the accident. Without legal representation our client said she may have felt pressured into accepting 50% responsibility just to end the matter.

But with our support and reassurance, she instructed us to issue Court Proceedings which resulted in the Defendants Solicitors accepting our offer to settle the claim and they took 100% responsibility.

The Law Society has been running a campaign for over 12 months now highlighting the importance of people using Solicitors.

Statistically Claimants receive on average 50% lower compensation when dealing with insurers direct. Claims can be not only under settled but settled too early, leaving Claimants with ongoing injuries and no recourse against the insurers in the future.

Don’t sign your compensation away with an insurer – get legal advice #goodhonestlaw #injurylawyerBW


AIM Gala Ball

On Friday the 11th Sept, I had the pleasure of attending AIM’S gala ball at the Crowne Plaza, Liverpool. The event was black tie. I had invited guests and had a full table of 10, and everyone looked wonderful. We were greeted with a glass of champagne and had an opera singer entertain whilst we all rubbed shoulders with other guests. It was great to catch up with other friend’s and business colleagues.

We were shown through to the ball room, wonderfully decorated and lit, the place was packed and you could sense that all were ready for a great night.

It was lovely to hear from Steve and Andy welcoming everyone and explaining to those new to AIM what they did and how they help others.

After a tasty 3 course meal and lots of wine…and beer, the night began with 2 comedians.

For no reason but that the compare and comedian Lee Roberts live there, Huddersfield got a bashing, as did anyone who dared to walk into the room or catch the comedians gaze. One of the comedians Jackie Hagan, herself and amputee, made the whole room scream with laughter at some of her own amputation jokes. Her leg puppet faces are imprinted in my brain, I will never look at Harry Potter in the same way again. I am sure all present felt as I did that her strength to turn what some would feel a life changing tragedy in losing a limb into a positive as she has done. She finished off by raising a glass of wine, (poured into her prosthetic lower leg) and drinking to the future of AIM to all cheering and applauding.

The night was to have fun, catch up with friends and make new ones, but also to raise money to help AIM continue the great work they do. Raffles and auctions raised £6,000 with holiday breaks in the Lakes, glamping breaks, disabled holiday vouchers, Chester zoo memberships, shark dives, Harrods Champagne, IPAD mini, spa treatments, home aquariums, signed Frank Bruno boxing gloves, signed football shirts and footballs, hairdressing and beauty (of course won by the bald man). I myself bid and won a room mural from Murals by Ryall design, I have not yet told my wife but I am looking forward to waking up to Kim Kardiashan on my ceiling every morning.

I am so pleased to have been invited and to continue to support this great bunch of people. I look forward to the next party but not the Saturday hangover.

Thank you AIM for a fantastic evening and please do keep me involved with any future events, it really is a pleasure to help and support you guys with the work that you do.

Article written by Michael Ward; taken from the October 2015 AIM newsletter


Potholes, pavements and personal injury…

Today I’m taking time from my more specific work with two wheels to consider something possibly more relatable to the majority of the public, though absolutely relevant to two wheeled road users too! The condition of the road, highways, and pavements.

Though as road users I’d argue we’ve all had to take evasive action to miss a pothole, grid, or substance on or/in the carriageway, as a pedestrian, cyclist or a motorcyclist sometimes it’s simply hidden from us or it’s a choice between the better of two evils.

I recently had the opportunity to help a gentleman cyclist whose front wheel had become caught in a pothole on a very busy road causing him to be thrown from his bike. On the road in question given the speed and volume of traffic, the rider was unable to simply swerve around it for fear of being run over by other traffic. Instead he suffered a nasty fracture which caused him to take quite a bit of time off work, for which he wasn’t paid until liability was determined.

Now in the case of cyclists and pedestrians, I can hear cries of Road Tax and the like but let’s be quite honest about this, ‘Road Tax’ doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t done since 1937! Its replacement ‘Vehicle Excise Duty’ is based upon the emissions of the vehicle and is in fact payable to the General Treasury Fund in any event – in reality it is a tax on pollution. Of course in the vast majority of cases, pedestrians and cyclists will in fact pay towards another form of motorised transport.

In another successful case, my client was crossing a road between a car park and a row of shops when their foot became caught in a rutted groove in the middle of the road. When we obtained measurements the groove was approximately 3 inches deep and 5 foot in length!? What would in anybody’s mind appear to be a busy main road was in fact more like a country lane!

Now it’s easy to suggest that people need to take more care and attention, certainly there are some cases where the judiciary have been keen to comment upon this and rightly so, but this in itself is not a defence, nor an excuse to turn a walk to the shops into an obstacle course.

In certain cases the hazard simply isn’t known about until it’s too late. As a pedestrian this is often the case where paving flags are unsteady or uneven, and as a road user diesel is a prime example. But of course sometimes there just in an alternative route.

But what is reasonable under the circumstances?

Well, I’d say that depends on the location and the environment at the time. In a busy urban environment with lots of traffic which can be dangerous in itself, more care is obviously required but it’s wrong to say that all of these incidents are avoidable. How does the brain process so many hazards? We are only human after all.