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compensation following an accident
illness or injury - nationwide
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Making a personal injury accident compensation claim under a no win no fee agreement is a safeguard against costs, in respect of both the claimants' legal fees and those of the defendant.
And any reputable firm will protect their client until the whole period of litigation is taken to finality – after all appeals and counter appeals are made and ruled upon.
In a particularly sad case that emerged recently a father who took a holiday company to court under a no win no fee agreement had the damages award decision, originally made in his favour, overturned in the court of appeal, but insurance policies put in place by his personal injury solicitors as part of the conditional fee agreement (another term for no win no fee) meant that he was protected.
The man and his family had been holidaying at a caravan park when his young son fell into a fenced off pond and drowned.
Originally a judge ruled that the holiday firm were responsible for nervous shock and psychological trauma suffered as a result of the man finding his son's body. He was awarded £25,000. However, as the holiday company lodged an immediate appeal against the ruling, the man's solicitors placed the award amount in an account held on his behalf.
At the appeal hearing the court heard how the family had spent almost an entire three days in the caravan during a spate of inclement weather and on the fourth day, as the father chatted with a neighbouring holidaymaker, his two sons left the caravan and wandered approximately 60 yards to the pond.
The previous year, a four-year-old boy had fallen into the pond and the holiday company had decided to fence it off, but, as the appeal judge said in his ruling, what happened next was "every parent's worst nightmare".
He said that the loss of their son had obviously been devastating for the parents and that they were in no way implicated in the tragedy, "but it does not follow from the fact that they were not at fault that [the holiday company] was in breach of duty. The danger of the lake to a small child, should that child in fact stray, was obvious."
He also suggested that there is little that parents can do as small children can disappear instantaneously of their own accord. However, holiday sites will inherently contain sources of danger for unaccompanied children and that in this case, "further warnings as to that obvious circumstance could not have made any difference."
The father was ordered to repay the compensation award and also to pay the holiday company's legal costs – totaling around £15,000. As the litigation was undertaken through a no win no fee agreement, the father will have been protected from those costs and the personal injury solicitors will pay back the lump sum damages award from the client's account. It is a very sad case, but one that demonstrates the benefits of conditional fee agreements.
