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Vibration white finger news
21/02/2008
Solicitors repay cash
Pontefract peer Lord Lofthouse has announced that he is delighted that unscrupulous "no win, no fee solicitors" who took money from miners suffering from workplace conditions such as vibration white finger through the dubious practice of "double-dipping" are to be forced to pay the money back.
The process of double-dipping came about in 1999 after the government said that they would pay up to £2,500 to fund the compensation claims of miners suffering from workplace conditions such as industrial deafness, respiratory disease and vibration white finger.
However, it emerged that a number of "no win, no fee" solicitors were accepting the government fee only to then charge successful claimants a proportion of their compensation awards.
Lord Lofthouse commented, "When I found out this was happening, I was appalled. I demanded in the House of Lords that the solicitors repay the money, and said if they did not I would name and shame them in the House. They did not do so, so I named and shamed them."
The document in which the unscrupulous solicitors were named and shamed came to be known as the "Roll of Dishonour" and has continued to provide incentive to those solicitors who indulged in the practice to pay money back to clients.
Although there is still a significant number of solicitors who have failed to return money to winning compensation claimants, it is expected that the combined efforts of Lord Lofthouse, the Legal Complaints Society and two MPs, Yvette Cooper and John Trickett, will pressure them into doing the right thing.
