Compensation claims in danger

Personal injury lawyers have criticised Law Commission proposals they say will seriously undermine people’s right to compensation.

In a consultation paper that closed this month, the Law Commission set out plans which sought to balance “fairness to an aggrieved person with the need to promote “effective public administration”. However, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) says the plans could allow public bodies to get away with negligence.

Amada Stevens, APIL president, says the proposals are not justified by current circumstance.

“Liability against public bodies is not expanding and we can find no clear rationale to justify radical reform of the law in relation to public bodies,” she says.

Stevens continues:
“Negligence which results in injury or death causes the same devastation irrespective of whether the defendant is a private individual or a public body, and the negligence test should not be tougher for one than the other.”

She says that changes to the law would mean that even in cases where fault had been clearly established against public bodies it would no