Stuart Kightley blasts the ABIs streamlining proposals

The idea, it seems, is simple. The injured person cuts out the middle man (his lawyer) and deals direct with the person who injured him (let’s call him the Accident Partner) and/or the insurers (for argument’s sake, the Accident Facilitator). He or she simply completes the Accident Facilitator’s form (assuming he didn’t injure his hands, arms, eyes or brain), detailing his case on duty, breach, causation and loss, and sends it to the Accident Facilitator (Acc Fac).

He does not need legal advice because it’s only a bit of form filling, and he does not need to investigate the case or contact witnesses because the AccFac (Fac) will do that for him. At the end of 3 months the Fac will get back to him (honest) to inform him whether or not his claim has been successful. If so, he need only attend the Fac’s doctor for a report on why he has not yet returned to work and within another 3 months (yes, really) he can expect to receive the Fac’s valuation.

He is entitled to legal advice on the tariff figure ascribed to his claim and to mediation if he is still not happy. If he is really difficult and insists he needs a lawyer, he is of course perfectly entitled to find one, either now or after a liability denial, but the scene of crime will be stale and the bodies hidden.

It is proposed that this scheme applies to well over 90% of all PI claims. At a stroke the lengthy, costly and generally troublesome business of accident litigation becomes just another consumer process. Like Tesco Law but without the law.

Undoubtedly the ABI is a powerful and respected voice in the debate on civil justice reform. It is perhaps a measure of that power that the recent ‘compensation culture’ campaign, with its weekly stories of cancelled school trips, abandoned pancake races and banned conkers, prompted the government to legislate on the issue even though nobody believes – and that includes the government and the ABI – that such a culture exists in this country. Perhaps emboldened by that success the ABI has now turned its guns on the compensation system itself.

The best evidence is that the cost of PI claims is not increasing and that recent hikes were down to government and insurance industry policies. The Better Regulation Task Force has per capita tort costs in the UK near the bottom of the industrial world’s league table. And on delay, there already exists a Protocol that requires defendants and their insurers to investigate and respond on liability within three months. The problem is that they all too often delay, so that the Claimant ends up with little option but to litigate

But at least the stakeholders have engaged the idea of reform to the PI system and real concessions and improvements have been made, suchas the recent fixed costs and fixed success fees schemes.

But back to the consumer. There is nothing in the scheme that protects or promotes the interest of the consumer. In fact it does the precise opposite and dismantles the machinery designed to give the injured person a fair chance of redress. It was never a good time to be injured by someone else’s negligence, but for them to injure you and then take over the handling of your claim would be an injustice too far.

Stuart Kightley is a Partner at Osbornes Solicitors in Camden, London.
This article was published in the Law Society Gazette in March 2006