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Friend accused of causing whiplash in the UK
TPSou
MrRegistered User regular
MrRegistered User regular
A friend was involved in a traffic accident a while ago where no damage was caused to either car (it was very slow and side to side) but my friend was to blame. The other driver is now claiming a reasonably large amount of money (from no win no fee) in a whiplash claim that seems bogus but is backed up with a letter from a doctor. Is there anything they can do?
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Tell your friend to speak to whoever was insuring them at the time/or the car hire company if they were hiring.
Can give fuller response when not on phone.
Claimant solicitors generally must present all small road traffic accident injury claims (sub £25k) to the defendant insurer directly via a system administered by the ministry of justice. If they haven't and have written directly to your friend, pass the correspondence to his insurer, do not respond other than for him to provide his insurance details. They should then present the claim via the proper channels. If they have written to your friend for any reason other than to request his insurance details, do not respond, and pass the letter straight to the insurer.
If your friend hasn't reported the accident, now is the time, because once the solicitors present the claim to the insurer there are only fifteen days to respond on the matter of liability (who is at fault for the accident) if the insurer wants to keep the matter within the Jackson reform fixed cost protocol (which you do, because otherwise things get very expensive, very fast, the Jackson protocol keeps claimant solicitor's costs to around £1500 tops).
The claim can be defended on one of several bases:
Injury - you can dispute that the claimant was injured. This is very difficult if medical evidence is presented in line with the standards required by the protocol, which it will be unless they are using the world's shadiest solicitors. Realistically this is only ever feasible if some kind of organised fraud can be proven.
Liability - you can dispute that the accident was the defendant's fault. Depends on the circumstances and looks like a non-starter here.
Causation - though it is accepted that the claimant has suffered an injury, it wasn't caused by the accident. Difficult again and usually depends on the nature of the injury vs the circumstances of the accident - expert testimony tends to be needed, which is expensive and often contested by the claimant's expert, which punts you out of the low cost protocol into full assessed costs. Generally not worth the risk, given that courts will generally side with the claimant in cases of doubt (as they're the innocent party), unless the claim is high value anyway and you're very sure you have an argument.
Quantum - all of the above are conceded but it is considered that the claimant solicitors have valued the injury too highly - generally an insurer will negotiate this down in line with case law.
Usually things are sorted out in that order in line with the protocol. If your friend reported the accident at the time it is very likely his insurer (assuming they've been contacted already by the claimant solicitors) will already have conceded at least the first two points. If the accident was very light then they might raise causation, but this may not be tractable. To dispute they would probably need details of the damage to both vehicles (which they would have if claims had been presented for it, but it doesn't sound like that's the case here). Worth pointing out that collisions that cause "no damage" can be a lot heavier than people think, especially if they're bumper to bumper collisions.
Unfortunately, whiplash/soft tissue injury claims are a complete pig because everything tends to turn on the medical evidence, which is notionally prepared by an "independent" doctor who, while not working for the claimant solicitors in any direct sense, will probably derive most of their income from work of that type. Draw what conclusions from that you will.
Practically, then. There is probably not much that can be done, other than give the insurer as much information as possible, as soon as possible.