RTA Portal Claims - One Profitable Way to Beat the MOJ Blues! - Sharon Lister, inJur

19/03/13. April 2013 is fast approaching; personal injury firms are looking for ways to preserve their profitability. 

Sharon Lister explains how instructing medical experts via your own medico-legal agency could be just what you need to say in business. She also discusses just how easy it is in this day and age using a resource such as inAge.

It seems that PI law firms risk losing a significant proportion of their income and many firms are scratching around looking for ways to stay in business. One way that enables firms to legitimately earn an additional stream of income is for them to use their own agency to instruct medical experts.

Here are the top 3 most frequently asked questions by solicitors:-

“Can this really be SRA compliant?”

Who else is doing it? (comfort in numbers)

“How do I do it?”

Let’s first take a look at whether your current way of instructing medical experts would stand up to SRA scrutiny?

Instructing experts for your clients using a third party commercial middleman agency??
First, can firms be sure that by devolving responsibility to a commercial agency, they are not putting the agency’s desire for profits before the clients’ needs? If they can’t demonstrate to the SRA what processes they have put in place to ensure this is not the case they could be in breach of SRA regulations. Further, those firms being dictated to by their referrer of claims as to which agency they need to instruct should seriously examine whether they fall foul of the SRA rules when working in this way.

Oh we don’t use agencies, we prefer to instruct experts directly?

Is this really in the best interest of your clients? Can you be sure that you are using enough of today’s resources and doing all that would be expected of you to find the best expert for your client and not one that you have instructed for your own convenience?

2011 SRA Rules are all about you showing that you have acted in your clients’ best interest.

Can you show that you have picked the closest most suitable expert for your client and not just the one you know of and have dealt with previously and who is near enough? For example, would there have been a more appropriate expert nearer if they had taken the care to find an alternative?

Firms may be sitting back thinking that this is the most compliant way to instruct experts, but think again!.

Today’s caseload often spreads across the UK, necessitating access to nationwide list of experts from a wide range of disciplines. In addition, firms may have no choice but to instruct an expert they have no prior knowledge of.

The Future of Medico-legal Instructions is here

By instructing experts using their own in-house medico-legal agency, claimant-focused PI firms can retain control of their medico legal instructions, make their own decisions with regard to expert-sourcing and provide an income stream that could make all the difference as to whether they stay in business or not.

However setting up and instructing experts via an in-house medico-agency is a tall order especially if it is to give consideration to Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) compliance, which of course is paramount for solicitor practices.

There a lot of things to take account of and fortunately for firms these have already been considered by inJur’s inAge service, which was designed to facilitate the direct instruction of experts and was especially created for solicitors' own medico-legal agencies.

Solicitors can get to work instantly by instructing their own cloud agency on the inJur portal. Everything a medico-legal agency could need is setup in the cloud. There is no set up time or costs for Solicitors to start using inAge. It is simple, quick and easy to use.

Built in SRA Compliance

There are many ways in which Inage provides built in SRA compliance.

All inAge users get the chance to rate experts and this continuous feedback from current users eventually leads to the best experts receiving accreditation. Parts of the accreditation process take account of the client care provided to the solicitors’ clients by the expert. Such things as the length of the appointment given and the quality of the consulting rooms etc are all considered in the feedback from the clients. Injur has awarded accreditation to 45 medical experts and many more are being monitored for accreditation at any one time.

Accredited Experts

Injur is powered by a database of over 9000 medical expert witnesses covering all disciplines across the UK. inJur gets feedback on regularly instructed experts and accredit those that merit it. These are flagged up on the portal as ‘tried and trusted’ for the benefit of all users so that they can ensure a better experience for their clients.

When we built the inJur system it was of primary importance to us that it should facilitate solicitors being able to offer a superior service to their clients at the same time as being able to create an extra source of income.

The portal’s built in considerations for client care include making sure the client can attend the most convenient appointment with the most appropriate expert for their individual needs. This takes account of language, cultural, religious and gender requirements as well as location.

It is these considerations that are automatically provided for by the portal that contribute to excellent SRA compliance for solicitors.

Setting up an in-house agency is legitimate if the correct procedures are in place. However attending a course is not a prerequisite to going down this path as inAge provides you with such an easy and simple way forward and the portal automatically provides the SRA compliance you need.

Cash flow and having to pay experts ahead of claims settling is often a concern for solicitor firms looking to set up their own agency. Having a cloud agency on inJur enables the in-house agency to tap into and benefit from the aggregate booking of instructions. They profit from the lower fees and longer payment terms that experts can offer inJur as a result of this .The icing on the cake though is the SRA complete peace of mind afforded to solicitor practices who instruct their own cloud agency on the inJur portal.

Sharon Lister is CEO of inJur (www.injur.co.uk) and founder of the
Association of In-house Medico-Legal Agencies (www.aimla.co.uk)

Image ©iStockphoto.com/dra_schwartz

One for the Road - Kate Lamont, 9 Gough Square

18/03/13. The Courts are not unfamiliar with RTA claims involving intoxicated pedestrians. Decisions tend to be quite fact specific but that is not to say that there is not some common rationale to them. A couple of recent decisions illustrate how the courts may approach the issue of liability and the last one should act as a warning to anybody acting on behalf of a Claimant in any RTA claim.

Before looking at those decisions it is worth reiterating some established principles. In Lunt v Khelifa [2002] EWCA Civ 801, the Court of Appeal criticised submissions on apportionment from both the Appellant and Respondent that put substantial emphasis on the fact of the pedestrian claimant’s intoxication. Latham LJ determined that whilst the Claimant’s intoxication was of undoubted significance in explaining why he behaved as he did it was his actions that needed to be considered when determining apportionment. He further recognised the high burden consistently placed on drivers to reflect the fact a car was a potentially dangerous weapon.

In considering the extent of apportionment it is always worth bearing in mind the words of Hale LJ in Eagle (by her Litigation Friend) v Chambers [2003] EWCA Civ 1107 at para.16 : “It is rare indeed for a pedestrian to be found more responsible than a driver unless the pedestrian has suddenly moved into the path of an oncoming vehicle”.

In January of this year judgment was handed down in the case of Robert Ian Ayres (by his Litigation Friend) v Mahesh Odedra [2013] EWHC 395 (QB). The Claimant was an ex-marine with two tours of duty in Iraq under his belt who had been on a night out with friends. It was clear on the face of the evidence that the effects of his intoxication were significant. In the moments before he was struck by the Defendant’s vehicle his trousers were around his ankles and he was walking in a crablike fashion to his left, facing the front of the Defendant’s vehicle. The Judge found that the Defendant had wanted to get past the Claimant as quickly as possible as the lights ahead were green and he was concerned that the Claimant may urinate on his car. He found he had attempted to manoeuvre around him, misjudging the time it would take for the Claimant to get to a position where he would be clear of the vehicle. The Court did not find, as had been suggested by witnesses on behalf of the Claimant, that the Defendant had deliberately driven into the Claimant or driven forward reckless as to whether he might strike him. The Judge found primary liability established on the basis that it would have been evident that the Claimant was drunk and potentially unsteady and that the accident could have been avoided had the Defendant remained stationary. In relation to contributory negligence the Claimant argued that whilst the Claimant’s behaviour was reprehensible it was not causatively potent. The Judge disagreed and determined that whilst the Defendant had to accept the far greater share of the responsibility the Claimant’s drunken state and fact his trousers were around his ankles hampered his ability to move freely. The fact he was not moving at a normal speed led the Defendant to misjudge his position and mistakenly believe he could get around him; for this the Judge found the Claimant to be 20% contributorily negligent.

In Jonathan Boyle v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis [2013] EWHC 395 (QB) the Court was concerned with a Claimant who had spent the evening in the pub drinking with a friend. At approximately 2am the Defendant driver, a police officer on duty but not responding to an emergency, was driving at 33 – 35 mph on a road with a speed limit of 30mph. The Claimant was in the vicinity of a bus stop on the same road. As the Defendant driver approached the bus stop the Claimant fell into the road in front of him. It was not in dispute that the Defendant driver was speeding but it was argued on his behalf, with reference to section 38(7) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, that this this did not necessarily denote a lack of care. The Judge found that this proposition was not, in itself, enough to exonerate the Defendant and that a reasonably prudent driver would have been driving about 5mph slower in an area where it was at least foreseeable that “the occasional intoxicated pedestrian or pedestrians might still be at large”. He found in this regard that the Defendant was in breach of his duty of care to the Claimant. The Judge did not make findings of breach on other pleaded grounds of breach, namely that the Defendant had failed to keep a proper look out or should have positioned his vehicle differently. In relation to causation, the evidence of both the Claimant and Defendant’s experts was that the Claimant would have to have been travelling slower than the Judge had adjudged to be reasonable in the circumstances to avoid striking the Claimant by breaking or swerving. The ultimate conclusion of this case comes as a salutary reminder to those instructed on behalf of claimants. The Claimant had adduced no evidence as to effect of speed on the extent of his injuries and therefore, finding as he did that the accident itself was unavoidable, the Judge had no way of determining the causative effects of the Defendant’s breach of duty.

Kate Lamont

Image ©iStockphoto.com/nazdravie

The Magnificent 7! Tips for Profitable Cosmetic Surgery Cases Post-Jackson - Geoffrey Simpson-Scott, Colemans-ctts Solicitors

17/03/13. Cosmetic surgery is on the frontline of the battle between maintaining good medical practice and making money. As the recent PIP implants scandal showed, consumers are the casualties. A single manufacturer went rogue by using low-grade silicone gel rather than the medical-grade materials it had obtained approval for across Europe. The sole motive was to increase profits – the lower grade gel was cheaper. Many thousands of women endured months of worry and/or avoidable surgery before it was confirmed that no health risk arose. Compensation cases in this area have their own set of problems for practitioners. With the advent of the Jackson reforms...

Image ©iStockphoto.com/SanneBerg

Read more (PIBULJ subscribers only)...