SCHOOL OF LAW

School Of Law



School Of Law

It has been suggested that the law of tort has allowed the integration of compensation in to being an aspect of everyday society. By explaining what the law of tort is and its affect on society we can ascertain whether such integration has led to an establishment of a compensation culture myth in the United Kingdom. In the context of the ongoing development of a compensation culture in this country thanks to the recognition of rights brought about by the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights ('ECHR') 1950 into domestic law by the Human Rights Act ('HRA') 1998, it is to be appreciated that some decisions may be continued to be somewhat supercilious. One of the major aims of tort law is to compensate those who have suffered personal injury. The present system shifts losses from the claimant to the defendant when the defendant has been shown to have been at fault. In recent years this system has come under increasing criticism as being an inefficient method of compensating accident victims. There are three systems which provide for accident victims. These are tort law, public insurance (social security) and private insurance. A person who is injured in an accident may become entitled to payments by the state, such as sickness benefit. Tort damages are distinguished from payments by the state in that the former are payable only on proof that a person caused an injury and was at fault in doing so. The latter are payable on the occurrence of an event and according to need. The third system is private insurance. This plays a small but growing part in accident compensation. Personal accident insurance or permanent health insurance may be taken out against the possibility of indisposition. This is still relatively expensive in the United Kingdom but is being taken up by employers for their key personnel. A number of criticisms are levelled at the tort system. It is very expensive to administer in comparison with social security. It has been calculated that the cost of operating the tort system accounts for 85 per cent of the sums which are paid to accident victims. For claimants the system is unpredictable, as they do not know whether they will receive any compensation or not. This results in pressure on claimants to settle actions for less than they would receive if they went to trial. The system is also slow and a claimant may have to wait years before receiving compensation. The more serious the accident then generally the longer the claimant has to wait. Finally, damages are usually paid in a lump sum. This creates difficulties as inflation may erode the value of the award and no account can be taken of improvement or deterioration in the claimant's medical condition. The civil justice system was subjected to a radical overhaul as a result of the Woolf Report on Access to Justice (1996). The reforms were introduced in 1999 with a view to ...