Who pays?

[Cycling Dan]

Act of god my arse. Tell them you're an atheist and you don't recognise that 'clause'

My question would be which god exactly?

 

[screenman]

Do not forget to claim for whiplash at the same time. I must admit I am not keen on this claim culture as it costs all of us. Some times poo happens I would tend to take it on the chin, but I know not everyone will feel the same.

 

[snorri]

Do not forget to claim for whiplash at the same time.

Best to be supporting yourself with a crutch wearing a neck brace when you go in to lodge your claim if you decide to follow advice from screenman.

 

[vernon]

Best to be supporting yourself with a crutch wearing a neck brace when you go in to lodge your claim if you decide to follow advice from screenman.

Neck braces are no longer fitted in A&E so making a claim while wearing one will undermine the claim as it telegraphs the fraud.

A teacher of my acquaintance tried to claim damages from a school because of a 'fall' down some wet stairs. There was a lot of subterfuge involved in making and supporting the claim but one of the key observations made by a member of management was that the neck brace being sported by the claimant during a home visit indicated the falsehood behind the claim at which point the claimant claimed that a neck brace had not been observed but it had, indeed, been a pink scarf and any presence of white plastic and pink foam was a trick of the light. How the injury claim unfolded, was rejected, appealed, failed, and transformed into a racial discrimination claim would have supported several script writers for a mini TV series.

But I digress....

 

[swee'pea99]

Do not forget to claim for whiplash at the same time. I must admit I am not keen on this claim culture as it costs all of us. Some times poo happens I would tend to take it on the chin, but I know not everyone will feel the same.

I was quizzing a friend who now lives in California about the claim culture and he said it does have its bonkers consequences, but on the other hand it does mean that, as he put it, 'unlike where we used to live in Hackney, old ladies round here don't keep falling over and breaking their hips because the local authorities make sure to keep the pavements in perfect order and repair any damage quickly, for fear of being sued.'

 

[screenman]

I was quizzing a friend who now lives in California about the claim culture and he said it does have its bonkers consequences, but on the other hand it does mean that, as he put it, 'unlike where we used to live in Hackney, old ladies round here don't keep falling over and breaking their hips because the local authorities make sure to keep the pavements in perfect order and repair any damage quickly, for fear of being sued.'

Good point, who is going to pay for it though? Most people moan about the cost of insurance, council tax etc.

 

[swee'pea99]

Well, we do, obviously. But that's how it has to work. Some organisation has to be responsible for maintaining the public environment and making sure it's safe; that organisation has to be funded by taxation; and if they don't do it properly, we get to vote them out and replace them with another equally incompetent bunch of muppets. It's hard to see how things could be organised differently really - at least with 'a claim culture', it keeps the buggers' eyes on the ball, and means they can't just ignore people or brush off their legitimate complaints.

 

[MontyVeda]

it's only a car.... faggeddabardit!

 

[Profpointy]

To suport a claim for damages (tort in the lingo) you need to prove 3 things:
Duty of care - in this case does the council have duty to passers by to maintain sign properly. - yes
Negligence - have they properly fullfilled that duty - maybe, maybe not
Proximity - has failure of above led pretty directly to the insury - yes

So the question is, was the sign properly fitted / maintained. Even if it fell down in a light breeze, council may get off if they've inspected it 6 months ago, but if came off in a hurricane, or extreme conditions, you'r going to have a tricky job proving it was faulty at all.

Just because it was their sign, and it fails, doesn't automatically make them blameworthy

 

[swee'pea99]

To suport a claim for damages (tort in the lingo) you need to prove 3 things:
Duty of care - in this case does the council have duty to passers by to maintain sign properly. - yes
Negligence - have they properly fullfilled that duty - maybe, maybe not
Proximity - has failure of above led pretty directly to the insury - yes

So the question is, was the sign properly fitted / maintained. Even if it fell down in a light breeze, council may get off if they've inspected it 6 months ago, but if came off in a hurricane, or extreme conditions, you'r going to have a tricky job proving it was faulty at all.

Just because it was their sign, and it fails, doesn't automatically make them blameworthy

I'm no lawyer (can you tell?) but the law generally, in my experience, makes sense, and I would guess that unless the conditions were so unusual/extreme that they 'could not reasonably have been anticipated' (or similar) then the fact that the thing blew off shows that there was indeed negligence: ie, a failure to ensure that 'come what may' (within reason) the thing will be fixed so's to stay fixed, and not go flying off so's to endanger innocent bystanders, bydrivers or whoever. And it would further seem to me that the onus would be on the council to prove that the conditions were that extreme/unusual, there being a default assumption that the council will stick things on so they don't fly off - even if it gets windy. Which, let's face it, is not unheard of.

 

[Profpointy]

I'm no lawyer (can you tell?) but the law generally, in my experience, makes sense, and I would guess that unless the conditions were so unusual/extreme that they 'could not reasonably have been anticipated' (or similar) then the fact that the thing blew off shows that there was indeed negligence: ie, a failure to ensure that 'come what may' (within reason) the thing will be fixed so's to stay fixed, and not go flying off so's to endanger innocent bystanders, bydrivers or whoever. And it would further seem to me that the onus would be on the council to prove that the conditions were that extreme/unusual, there being a default assumption that the council will stick things on so they don't fly off - even if it gets windy. Which, let's face it, is not unheard of.

Yup, that's about the size of it.

 

[Twelve Spokes]

This thread makes me wonder though.Did all the poor people who got flooded out recently get compensation from the council?

 

[swee'pea99]

This thread makes me wonder though.Did all the poor people who got flooded out recently get compensation from the council?

Not unless the water was the council's property.

 

[vernon]

This thread makes me wonder though.Did all the poor people who got flooded out recently get compensation from the council?

No because you can't nail rain to signposts.

 

[Twelve Spokes]

Not unless the water was the council's property.

What about river banks?