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Claiming expenses and collecting the evidence after an accident that was not your fault; car accidents or accidents at work that were not entirely your fault
Your Solicitor should very quickly commission a report from a Doctor to start the legal process. This has two functions.
The first function is to place the case in a stream of cases within the legal system. Every Personal Injury action in the courts must have a statement from a doctor to prove the action for court purposes. It gives an indication of the level of seriousness of injury and therefore monetary value and which court to place it in eg the High Court or a County Court.
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claiming expenses after an accident.
Mentor Experiences seeks to ensure that catastrophic injuries are placed in the High Court and dealt with by the most experienced of the firms solicitors notably a partner.
The second function of a doctors report as far as your solicitor is concerned is that it gives the solicitor the evidence to commission further reports and evidence. Some solicitors will not take any action at all to commission reports as there are protocols that they work under. Notably a judge will sanction the reports after arguments are heard from either side. However if you have a QC on your side sometimes these issues are sidestepped. Hence, the importance in getting to the right solicitor. Arguments can be lost and insurance companies always instruct the best barristers especially in high cost cases is catastrophic injury cases.
You and I and the lawyer may know that if you lose a leg that it is obvious that you will need wheelchairs and prosthetic legs, but if a Doctor States that it is needed that is evidence and that then can be acted upon.
Once the evidence is in the solicitor can then commission further reports from Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Prosthetists, Pain specialists, Nursing specialists and Housing specialists from the original evidence from the doctor.
Depending on what your injury is there may be other specialists involved. The principle is clear though if a report highlights the need for an expert to advise and it can be justified then that report spawns the next one.
Experts are expensive as any type of professional witness expert is and they do tend to want to write short interim reports, then write further interim reports until none else can be justified or if they run out of time and the final report is required as a necessity. You then find out the final numbers. You may be justifiably angry that you do not then get the highest quality of report. Bite your bottom lip. Correct the errors and omissions. Write to them through your solicitor asking that the points be challenged and hopefully then changed before the report is disclosed.
Courts are now insisting that experts are appointed jointly in conjunction with the defendants solicitor. This is because enormous sums of money are wasted on the same evidence.
Other medical statements and reports can come from anywhere at anytime. It is a common misconception that your medical notes are confidential. When you are seeking substantial sums of money from the courts and insurance companies they will be very reluctant to part with any money if they are unsure that you are telling the truth or not. Fraudulent claims are all too common. Consequently they invariably ask to have your medical notes disclosed.
In our case my husband was quite ready to disclose his physical notes and x-rays, hospital records etc. He was not so ready to disclose his NHS psychiatric records. We felt that there had to be a part of him that he could call his own in his psyche and that no-one, and by that we mean absolutely no-one, could get to.
A psychiatrist is the one and only person who one can talk to in the mad process of litigation who is truly there for you and no-one else. When the psychiatrist too is asked to report on you the danger of the report stating something that you do not want known is obvious.
The gathering of witnesses is not confined to the incident itself. Remember the dominoes. The Queen's Counsel Barrister we had said one day, three years after the accident, that he wanted a statement off the lady who helped care for my husband's. He wanted evidence of what happened inside the home but wanted it from an independent person. He was checking up on us.
So the old lady who thought she had a nice little job found she may have been a witness in the High Court. She gave the statement but we felt that she was never entirely happy with making it. She stopped coming shortly after, so we think it frightened her off.
Undeterred the barrister asked again of another care worker who knew that this may be the case from the outset. So the eyes and ears of a civil case extend way beyond the time of the index incident. Be aware, evidence gathering goes on until you agree to settle or until a settlement is imposed upon you. This is an issue when employing an agency or carer.
If it comes to you having to warn carers regarding evidence being sought in this way and the carer is unhappy with doing this, then it is best not to use the carer. The last thing you want is someone giving evidence that you are not happy about. The person should not be used and someone else found that you are happy about and the carer is happy to give an account of your care.
Evidence gathering, however, goes on by the Defendant's side also and they are not confined with normal experts. Be ready for Dirty Tricks for example surveillance.
Gathering evidence and claiming expenses on top of your compensation claim
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