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Small Claims (Courts)

: I am not there any more, but there are many other good personal injury lawyers—members of APIL, for example—who are and will take on such cases on a contingency fee basis at no cost to the claimant. What happens if the insurer—if the claimant has managed to track them down—writes back denying liability? How is such a person to assess whether they even have a claim if they do not know the basic principles of the laws of negligence or statutory duty? What if the insurer alleges contributory negligence? Does everybody know what that is and how to assess the percentage that someone might be to blame for tripping up if they were not looking where they were going? In such circumstances, the claimant would drop the case. When I was in practice, there was an empirical rule of thumb—a sort of four-thirds rule: only a third of cases came anywhere near us in the first place, a third of which had no hope and should not be brought, a third of which were pretty certain to succeed, and a third of which needed work to build up the case, find the evidence and establish liability. The average person in the street is not able to do that. It goes on. Let us assume that the case finally gets to court. The claimant has to fill in the forms and find the medical evidence—the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) mentioned that. Would they know how to do that? Suppose that they managed to get a case under way and the insurer says, ““Okay, we'll give you 500 quid””? How would they know if that is enough, particularly if there is an allegation of contributory negligence? The public's view of damages bears no relationship to reality. When I was doing some research for a Law Commission paper, we did some focus group work, which was very popular in the 1990s, and found that the average person in the street thought that the value of the injury, excluding any financial loss, was three times what they would actually get from a court. Therefore, people might take cases further and pursue them for longer because they are not told that they are not worth as much as they think. That is very counterintuitive, from the insurers' point of view, if the case were to get that far. Frankly, from the Committee's report, it seems that it has no idea of the value of claims either. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred to paragraph 52 of the report, but someone who is off work with injuries for months would claim more than £2,500 anyway. It is suggested that such a case should go ahead on the basis of a report from a GP or physiotherapist; one would not get on the personal injury panel of the Law Society with that sort of assessment of a case. That is not how they would be fought. They would potentially be worth rather more than that. APIL's MORI research showed that 80 per cent. of people felt that they would not be offered enough by an insurance company, so even if the insurer offered the right value in those sorts of cases, the offer would not be accepted because people think that cases are worth more than they are. We have the Judicial Studies Board guidelines, which give brackets and ranges for personal injury damages. Most people think that their case should be in a higher bracket than it is, and that it is worth the top of the range in that bracket, which it will not be. It is not just a matter of the injury itself; another consideration is the special damages—the financial losses. Who advises on whether one can recover for damages to one's clothing and if so how to assess the amount? Who advises how to get money for broken spectacles and how to assess the amount? It is not the replacement value. Who advises a pensioner who is incapacitated from doing household chores and needs extra help about the home that if they hire a home help for a week or two, they can recover that cost? The insurance company certainly will not tell them that. People have an utter fear of courts, which I mentioned earlier. Even when they are represented, they are terrified of court. I have taken many clients to court and one of the first things that I always do is take them into the courtroom before the judge gets there to show them where everybody sits. I try to put them at ease. People are like a cat on a hot tin roof when they think that they will have to give evidence in court, even in the relatively informal circumstances of a small claims court. Even lawyers get nervous about representing people before a judge. How would Mrs. Patel cope if her case got that far? Would she know how to find an interpreter? Would she really be able to put her case against a seasoned insurance company representative? Would Mr. Smith, with his visual impairment, or Mr. Jones, an ordinary person who has been clipped by a car, be able to put their cases? Such cases are everyday occurrences for insurance claims assessors. They are trained on processes, evidence, how to cross-examine and evaluations. An interventionist judge is not the answer. We also have to bear in mind that the outcome of one of these cases is in full and final settlement. What happens if the claimant turns out to be more injured than they thought and did not realise that they could consider that particular aspect? A lawyer would make sure that the medical evidence was right and would look at the long-term consequences. I have been speaking for far too long on this issue, but I feel passionately about it. I believe that the recommendation will victimise people thrice over: first as victims of the injury, secondly as victims of the insurance industry, and thirdly, and perhaps most seriously, as victims of a legal system that will manifestly fail to give them justice. If we must have a small claims limit for personal injury cases, it should stay where it is.