Watch out! Personal injury from popped Christmas lights makes front page

Reading the local paper this week, it turns out that you don't have to work in a no win, no fee compensation company to be overly nervous about personal injury occurring after all. Right there on the front page - the main story, no less - was a warning about our new high street Christmas lights, just put up by the council, which were at a risk of popping.

It turned out that in a test before the official switch-on last month, a general failure in the bulbs meant that about ten percent of the small white lights were likely to pop their polycarbonate covers off, and as they're strung across the street, these covers could fall on unsuspecting people below.

That said, the risk of personal injury from a little bulb cover falling on you is quite small; the covers have been described as being about the same size and weight as a ping pong ball. However, showing great responsibility, the Council did debate this risk, trying to work out whether the potential for causing harm to the people it is supposed to represent was great enough to delay turning the Christmas lights on.

They came down on the side of being permissible. One councillor has been quoted as saying "Because they are only the weight of a table-tennis ball, the risk is very slight, and we should proceed."

You might think, then, that a no win, no fee solicitor would have no more interest in the story, but the decision has been hedged with a note that the Council will reconsider it if further data showing greater risks appears. That could mean that if someone does find himself or herself in a position that leaves them wanting to make a personal injury compensation claim against the council, then a lawyer will suddenly have a professional interest in the story.

I can imagine a situation, for example, where the small spherical covers do not land on someone's head, but rather on the floor just ahead, thus making a slip or trip accident occur. This, of course, is without knowing how strong the covers are; it's possible that they would simply crush underfoot like an empty eggshell, without even the biological goo to make it slippery. Hopefully that, too, has been in the council's risk assessment (the cover, not the eggshell).

Reasons for the mini-explosions haven't been shown yet, but early indications from both the council and the manufacturer have suggested that the reason could be to do with a defective batch of bulbs; the replacements appear to have had a much lower failure rate. The hypothetical no win, no fee solicitor I mentioned above would probably now be looking at the story and wondering if that could make a personal injury claim into a product liability one.

But what I like best is that the journalist thought it was important enough to put this tiny tiny personal injury risk on the most important spot of the paper; compared to some of the stories I used to see on the London papers, it makes it clear that coming out to write for a no win, no fee company at a quieter end of the country was probably good for my health.

Can I claim?