Nothing to do with the accident?! Another victim fights back

Posted 20/02/2014

Tom Ranson, a personal injury lawyer at Ashtons Legal, has obtained compensation for Mr G, who required medical treatment and specialist orthopaedic review after suffering a ‘whiplash’ injury in a road traffic incident in September 2011.

The defendant insurer refused to make timely or reasonable interim payments and it was only following the issue of Court proceedings that we were able to compel them to do so. In fact the defendant insurer offered nothing prior to issuing. They then offered £75,000 which increased to £100,000 before a figure of £150,000 was agreed around six weeks before trial.

Mr G, who worked for a window company, refused to allow himself to be intimidated by the defendant’s ‘strong arm’ tactics which were further fuelled by the “alternative” opinion provided by their medical expert who thought that Mr G would have found himself in the same position if the incident had not occurred.

Mr G was happy to follow our advice and was prepared to pursue matters all the way to trial if necessary, to ensure the right result was obtained for him. As the settlement figure reveals, Mr G was entirely vindicated, achieving double the amount of the defendant’s original offer.

Tom Ranson comments: “Unfortunately, Mr G’s case is by no means an isolated example. With pressure on everyone to keep the costs of injury claims to a minimum it is baffling that defendant insurers routinely fail to grasp the realistic value of the claims before them. Instead they choose to make derisory offers, fail to make interim payments when they should and ‘muddy the water’ with spurious allegations and unreasonable reports from their experts. This significantly increases the cost of litigation through no fault of the claimant.  Needless to say, it is vital that claimants and their representatives are robust and give short shrift to such tactics to avoid settling claims at less than their true value.”