Personal Injury

Three years generally, under section 6(2) of the Limitation of Actions Law 66(I)/2012, running from the day the cause of action was complete or, if later, from the day the injured person came to know of the injury. Say at the outset if three years is close or has passed.

Where the three years have passed, section 6(3) gives the court a discretion to disapply the limitation provisions in a claim for injury or death, not exercisable more than two years after the period expired. Section 27Α of the Limitation of Actionable Rights Law, Law 66(I)/2012, suspended the limitation period for negligence and breach of statutory duty for thirty-nine months from the entry into force of the 2021 amending law. That suspension has since ended, but for a claim whose period was running during it, the three years is not by itself the answer to whether it is in time.

Usually there is. Where an injured person contributed to their own injury, the claim is not defeated: the award is reduced to reflect that share of responsibility. How a court would apportion it is a matter for evidence, and nobody can tell you the proportion at the first meeting.

Not before the medical position is understood. An early offer is made when least is known about the injury, and it is not evidence of what the claim is worth. Take advice before signing anything, including anything called a receipt or a discharge.

A receipt, a discharge and a settlement agreement are contracts, binding once they satisfy section 10 of the Contract Law, Cap. 149, and set aside only on the grounds that Law provides: coercion under section 15, undue influence under section 16, fraud under section 17, misrepresentation under section 18, and common mistake as to a material fact under section 21.

A low sum is not by itself one of them, although section 25(3) allows the court to take the inadequacy of consideration into account in deciding whether consent was freely given.

Not in your matter. The Advocates Law, Cap. 2, in section 14N(1), requires compliance with the provisions concerning, among other things, “the prohibition on the same advocate supporting parties who have conflicting interests”, which belongs to the professional and ethical rules governing practice.

We do not act on both sides of the same or a related claim, and a conflict check comes first. Acting for both sides across the practice, in separate and unrelated matters, means we know how a file is assessed by the people who will be assessing yours.

Yes. A gap between the accident and the first medical attendance is the point most often taken against an injured person, because it invites the argument that the injury came from something else. The first medical record made after an accident does work that no later report can do.

Pain and suffering, loss of earnings already suffered and in the future, loss of earning capacity, medical, hospital and rehabilitation costs, and other documented expenses. Special damages have to be pleaded specifically and proved strictly. What the claim is worth turns on the medical evidence and the documented loss, not on the kind of accident.

No. Under section 65 of the Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, money paid or payable under a contract of insurance in respect of the wrong, and benefits or allowances paid or payable by the Social Insurance Fund in consequence of the same circumstances, are left out of account in computing damages. A benefit received while you recover is not a reason to delay taking advice.

Ask about the limitation position and about who brings the claim before anything else. Under the second proviso to section 59 of Cap. 148, a child who has not completed their twelfth year is not to be regarded as capable of knowing or appreciating a dangerous state of affairs, or of voluntarily exposing themselves to it, so the defence of voluntary assumption of risk is not open against a younger child at all.

Collect the same evidence as in any other claim: photographs, the record of the incident and the medical notes.

It becomes a different claim, brought by the dependants. Under section 58 of Cap. 148, where a person is killed by a civil wrong that would have entitled them to sue had they lived, the person who would have been liable remains liable notwithstanding the death, and the action is brought for the benefit of the dependants.

Section 58(3) defines those, regardless of age: the spouse, any parent or other ascendant, any person the deceased treated as a parent, and any child or other descendant. Where the injured person has died, the dependants’ claim under section 58 of the Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, has its own period: under section 58(20) it must be brought within three years of the death, not of the accident. Send us the dates and the documents you have.