Atiyahs Accidents Compensation And The Law

This book applies social context to offer an understanding of the law concerning accidents, personal injury and death.

The definitive text on personal injury law, now updated to take into account recent significant changes in the law.

Definitive text on personal injury law now updated to take into account recent significant changes in the law.

Since its first publication, Accidents, Compensation and the Law has been recognised as the leading treatment of the law of personal injuries compensation and the social, political and economic issues surrounding it. The seventh edition of this classic work explores recent momentous changes in personal injury law and practice and puts them into broad perspective. Most significantly, it examines developments affecting the financing and conduct of personal injury claiming: the abolition of legal aid for most personal injury claims; the increasing use of conditional fee agreements and after-the-event insurance; the meteoric rise and impending regulation of the claims management industry. Complaints that Britain is a 'compensation culture' suffering an 'insurance crisis' are investigated. New statistics on tort claims are discussed, providing fresh insights into the evolution of the tort system which, despite recent reforms, remains deeply flawed and ripe for radical reform.

A classic treatment of the law relating to compensation for personal injuries, this edition discusses the relevant legal rules as well as the social, political and economic issues underlying the law.

A man slips on a dance floor and breaks his leg. He recovers damages. A child has both legs amputated as a result of meningitis and is awarded nothing. The law's justification for awarding damages in the first case is that the man's injury was the fault of someone else, while in the second case damages are denied because nobody was at fault. In this searching critique of the present law and practice relating to damages, Professor Patrick Atiyah shows that this system is in fact a lottery. He contends that the public are paying far too much for an unfair and inefficient insurance system and that reform is long overdue. His conclusion is that actions for damages for injuries should be abolished and replaced with a new no-fault road accident scheme, and actions for other injuries should be dealt with by individual or group insurance policies.

This ground-breaking book takes a fresh look at potential non-litigation solutions to providing personal injury compensation. It is the first systematic comparative study of such a large number – over forty – of personal injury compensation schemes. It covers the drivers for their creation, the frameworks under which they operate, the criteria and thresholds used, the compensation offered, the claims process, statistics on throughput and costs, and analysis of financial costings. It also considers and compares the successes and failings of these schemes. Many different types of redress providers are studied. These include the comprehensive no-blame coverage offered by the New Zealand Accident Compensation Corporation; the widely used Patient, Pharmaceutical, Motor Accident and Workers Compensation Insurance systems of the Nordic states; the far smaller issue-focused schemes like the UK Thalidomide and vCJD Trusts; vaccine damage schemes that exist in many countries; as well as motor vehicle schemes from the USA. Conclusions are drawn about the functions, essential requirements, architecture, scope, operation and performance of personal injury compensation systems. The relationships between such schemes, the courts and regulators are also discussed, and both calls and need for reforms are noted. Noting the wide calls for reform of NHS medical negligence litigation within the UK, and its replacement with a no blame approach, the authors' findings outline options for future policy in this area. This major contribution builds on general shifts from courts to ADR, and from blame to no blame in regulation, and is a work that has the potential to have a major impact on the field of personal injury redress. With contributions by Raymond Byrne, Claire Bright, Shuna Mason, Magdalena Tulibacka, Matti Urho, Mary Walker and Herbert Woopen.