Judge dismisses defamation case over €1 shopping bag

silver2020 wrote: »

Hopefully dealz register a judgment against her.

Notice how few claims there are against Dublin bus?

They fight EVERY spurious claim to the end and they go after every cent of costs including taking out court orders.

Funny how certain types of solicitors never take on Dublin bus?

The CEO from CIE was one of the speakers at the conference yesterday too. They self insure so only a most catastrophic loss would be covered by their insurers so its very much in their own interests to vehemently defend claims that are dodgy. Its easier for them to defend however as all busses have multiple CCTV cameras, the newest ones on the fleet have 16. Same with each station/depot. They also have a dedicated claims team working directly for them, how many organisations can say the same?

Tony EH wrote: »

Exactly.

If insurance companies didn't just fold and hand over the money to these obviously fraudulent claims, they'd have more public support. But their crocodile tears aren't worth noticing, because they just pass on the hit to customers anyway.

It's hard to give a shit about their whinging when they just pass the buck so easily. And they have no problem making life hell for people with legitimate insurance claims, like a flooded house. They fucking bend over backwards not to pay out in those circumstances.

There's a trinity involved here with these situations. The person who takes out a claim because they slipped on their arse, the solicitor who suggests a money amount and the insurance company who hands over the readies cos they don't want to contest such a case.

Until all three are dealt with (especially the ambulance chasing solicitors), nothing will change.

Insurance claims operate on the basis of the balance of probabilities. Say I crash into the back of your car at very low speed, an accident has occurred. Say you then go to your doctor a day or two later and tell him you have symptoms of whiplash so he gives you some pills and a cert for work. Say you go back a week later and tell him the same thing. More pills and more time off work. Say you go back again and he then refers you for an MRI. MRI shows nothing conclusive however it is medically impossible to disprove whiplash.

You lodge a claim for personal injuries, going all the way to court you could get 30, 40, 50k potentially. Add on another 30 to 60% for legal egal fees on top of that. Add on insurers costs, claims handlers, investigators fees etc. All of a sudden you are looking at potentially €100k for the claim all in.

An accident did occur.

You made multiple trips to your doctor and have notes from him saying you had terrible back pain (this is what he was told btw, not what he diagnosed) and you also had an MRI done.

That comes up in front of a judge, remember, the fact an accident did occur is not in question so on the balance of probabilities, could you have potentially received a significant injury? You could, and more often than not, the courts will rule in your favour, especially when you have "medical" evidence backing up your injuries because the balance of probabilities need only be 51% in favour of the court siding with you.

So the Insurer gets a bill for the guts of €100k, thanks and good luck.

Or, they could have paid you 10 or 15k nuisance money once liability was established and saved themselves 60 or 70k.

If you were a business, what would you do?

It's all well and good people waxing lyrical about insurers defending every single claim to the bitter end but the reality is that in the majority of cases it wont make any difference to the end result other than costing them a shyt load more than it needed to.

Tony EH wrote: »

I know how they operate. It still doesn't excuse insurance companies of their responsibility and their part in the increasing number of bogus claims.

Your whiplash scenario has always been the grey area and very difficult for insurance companies to fight against. However, those same have been giving in to clearly bogus and silly claims, of other kinds, for some time now because they know that they can just pass off the losses to the punter and just keep upping the cost of premiums.

They aren't an innocent party in all of this.

When you see some of the awards that have been given are you at all surprised that companies try and settle where they feel they are exposed?

I absolutely guarantee, and you can book mark this post, when awards payments are recalibrated and introduced, premiums will come down and available covers for at risk industries will expand, it's going to be at least 12 to 18 months before the revision happens but its coming.

As for insurers blame, they absolutely have some, I've never stated otherwise however if you take Irish Public Bodies, the insurer that covers public places in ROI, they currently have in excess of €500,000,000 worth of open claims, 75% of those relate to public liability. IPB are a 100% not for profit organisation yet are being inundated with slip, trip and fall claims, why? Because the court system is impossibly skewed in favour of claimants, until that changes then nothing else will.

People should have a read of the personal injuries commission report from last year, full document here. There is alot of text in it but the most pertinent thing is on page 18, on average, soft tissue / whiplash awards here are 4.4 times higher than that which are awarded in the UK.

People can bang on about insurer cartels but thats where the crux of the issue is, overpayments on makey uppy injuries. The average only incorporates awards up to €50k. I'd imagine thats due to the fact that payments over €50k will usually mean that there has been a significant injury that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt and with actual medical evidence as opposed to a letter from their GP saying the claimant presented with pain.

Its also quite telling that 90%, literally 90% of people complaining of whiplash type injuries ceased all rehab / physio once their claim had been settled. The source of that nugget is from a study conducted by the Mater.

NIMAN wrote: »

Every personal injury claim should be on a database open to the public to search.

Highlighting claimant, their solicitor, the defendant, amount paid out to each party, judge etc

A good idea scuppered by the current gdpr and costs of bringing together all the various existing databases. Which is not to say it couldn't be done, just that the powers that be are not willing to put in the effort required.