Trade Unions have a long tradition of supporting personal injury claims
I started my legal career with Thompsons and also worked for Russell Jones & Walker. They are just two firms which receive many cases through referral from Trade Unions. Claimants are represented under Collective Conditional Fee Agreements (CCFA). If the claim is successful the claimant can recover from the defendant a sum which is payable to the Union – in lieu of a premium in a CFA case. If unsuccessful the Union will pay the defendant’s costs on behalf of their member. As union solicitors win/settle the vast majority of their cases this is in fact a source of revenue for the Union.
I wonder then what they make of the proposals in the recent report by Lord Jackson on qualified one-way costs shifting? The idea is that the traditional rule of paying the defendant’s costs if you lose be abolished and replaced with this proposal quoted from page 189 of the report:
4.7 Proposed rule. I therefore propose that all claimants in personal injury cases, whether or not legally aided, be given a broadly similar degree of protection against adverse costs. In order to achieve this result I propose that a provision along the following lines be added to the CPR:
“Costs ordered against the claimant in any claim for personal injuries or clinical negligence shall not Read More »
