Lawford Kidd's Blog

We are pleased to note our personal injury solicitors in Edinburgh have succeeded in recovering £500,000 for a serious head injury through an accident at work.

While our client had spoken with other personal injury law firms who were suggesting he should pay 20% of his compensation, they chose us because he was able to keep 100% of his compensation, because we knew he would succeed and we knew we would be able to recover our fees from the insurers for the accident.

With this particular client, we were able to pay for all of the outlays throughout the length of the claim, funding his treatment to help him with his own personal recovery too.

After a forklift incident, a worker at Lees of Scotland Limited in Coatbridge shattered his arm and cut open his skull.

The injury was caused by the misuse of a forklift truck, and Lees of Scotland Limited, a company that makes teacakes, snowballs, and meringues, pleaded guilty to a charge under health and safety laws on December 13, 2022, at Airdrie Sheriff Court.

The court was informed that two large, heavy wooden crates were delivered to the yard at the company's Coatbridge location on June 4, 2019. A piece of machinery weighing 1.680 tonnes was in the first. The second piece of equipment weighs 1.932 tonnes.

The NHS Litigation Reform report, published by The Westminster Health and Social Care Committee earlier this year, suggested implementing a no-fault medical negligence compensation scheme in England.

The purpose of no-fault compensation schemes is that there is no requirement for negligence to be proven before compensation is paid out for injuries. The cause of the negligence must still be put forward, although proving individual fault is not required.

This type of model had previously been considered in Scotland - firstly in 2009, and then again in 2011 when a "no-blame" compensation scheme based on the Swedish model was discussed. It was proposed that compensation (up to the value of £100,000) for harm that could have been avoided due to medical treatment would be allowed, however, treatment received from independent contractors such as private hospitals, GPs, dentists, pharmacists etc would not be allowed within this proposed scheme.

A Freedom of Information request (FOI) showed that between the years of 2010 and 2020, the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust settled 10 stillbirth clinical negligence claims. Around 2,500 babies are stillborn every year, with 75 of those said to be attributed to clinical negligence. An average of £29,000 was paid out per case, as well as £286,000 in legal fees overall. Data also discovered that Trusts across the country are paying £29.8 milllion in damages and £34.8 million in legal fees over 758 medical negligence cases.

If you have suffered an accident at work, you could be entitled to compensation. Our expert accident at work claims lawyers have published a new guide here, where we set out the basics of making a claim for an accident at work. If you think that you have a claim, or if you have further questions, please do not hesitate to get in contact with our team. You can call us on 01312255214 or complete our online enquiry form, and we will get back to you without delay.