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Hopkins News A revolution in road accident claims Ian Corbett, Senior Personal Injury Solicitor at Hopkins Solicitors welcomes the new scheme for the handling of road accident personal injury claims. The scheme will be introduced on 6 April 2010 with the aim of reducing legal costs and the time taken for claims to be settled. Ian explains that the new claims process is most suitable for simple whiplash type injury claims. Disputed claims will still be handled by court action but as from 6 April, insurers will have a reduced time limit to accept liability and to respond to settlement offers. Only if the parties cannot agree on the value of the claim will the case go to court and even then the Judge will usually decide the case on the paperwork rather than waiting for an oral hearing which can take months. ‘It is a revolutionary scheme’ comments Ian and can lead to simple claims being settled within weeks or just a few months. Is a fish a tool? There, that got your attention! In Arizona, USA, a therapist called Miss Vong treated hard skin on the feet of her patients by immersing the patient’s feet in water that contained 100 small carp, who chewed off dead material. State law requires that all “tools” used in health care, are disinfected after each use and kept in clean, dry storage. You can see what problems complying with this legislation vigorously, might cause the fish…. Although Miss Vong argued that the ruling against her was “arbitrary, oppressive, discriminatory and unlawful” and although fish pedicure is popular elsewhere (eg China, Turkey) Miss Vong lost her case because “fish can carry parasites harmful to humans and as they can’t adequately be sterilized, the service must stop”. So, there you have it. A fish is a tool. I’m just off to order spanner and chips for tea………… Hopkins Solicitors raise over £100 for charity Hopkins Solicitors have raised £125.70 for local charity When you Wish Upon a Star. Staff at the law firm raised the money by donating money to the charity rather than sending each other Christmas cards. When you Wish Upon a Star will use the money to grant the wishes of children with life threatening illnesses. What made this judge so angry? Mr Justice Hedley recently said “I found it necessary to adjourn briefly….to ensure that no improper judicial observations escaped my lips…Judgment has been reserved because I did not trust myself to express my views in a temperate manner.” Not one, but two local authorities – Cambridgeshire County and Orkney Island Council – had enraged the learned judge. An unnamed school-age boy was born in Orkney. He had serious heart problems. His biological (Orkney) parents could not care for him; he was placed in foster-care with Cambridgeshire relatives, who could. At first, Orkney Council offered to fund foster-parents. They then withdrew that funding. Cambridgeshire have not picked up the bill. They say they cannot afford to pay for his care. Incredulous, Justice Hedley said, “Neither authority believed that they had any duty to offer even basic support, let alone all the extras that a child with special needs requires…They could be forgiven if the thought ever entered their minds as to why they had taken on this child in the first place.” Unfortunately, and here is the really galling thing, Justice Hedley said that the Family Courts have no power to order either local authority to pay for the child’s care. He says it’s a matter for government and central legislation to decide what happens in a situation like this. The moral of this tale seems to be: Don’t assume that the law or public authorities will take care of everything. In life, use your legal advisers wisely, to ensure that all angles and risks are covered. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES FROM THE TEAM AT HOPKINS. Taking the “lottery” out of divorce settlements An article in Times Online on 2.9.09 suggests that divorcing couples who cannot reach agreement when they separate are being advised to shop around England and Wales to find courts that are most likely to award them a favourable settlement. The article (correctly) states that there can be starkly differing outcomes, depending upon which part of the country their case is heard in. We would add: there can be different outcomes from the same judge, depending : upon his or her mood on the morning of your hearing, upon how the previous husband and wife to come before him behaved, and upon his perception that day, of how you or your client presents themselves. The article says that southern courts tend to be pro-wife, northern courts pro-husband. Our experience is that some judges around here are pro-wife, others pro-husband, and that some are pro-wife one day and pro-husband another day! Lawyers dealing in international cases sometimes try to get divorces heard in England and Wales because courts here are more flexible than in many other jurisdictions. So which judges are right? The answer: All of them. Divorce law in this country is flexible. Judges can, in given circumstances, impose a wide range of outcomes. This is what is meant by “the divorce lottery”. On the same set of facts, you might not get the same result in the same court two days running. The judge would not be “wrong” because he or she can apply their wide discretion to come up with either Result A or Result B. At Hopkins Solicitors we can remove the divorce lottery for your clients and other contacts. We can get the parties to resolve their dispute by Collaborative Law. With the help of another collaborative lawyer we get the couple around a table. We get them talking. We get them sharing information. We get them to pick their own outcome and avoid a stranger making decisions for them. When (agreed) papers go to court, they are submitted only for approval. Collaborative Law couples don’t expect a judge to make a decision and therefore don’t run the risk of an unexpected decision. If you know people important to you who may be separating, don’t let them run the risk of the “divorce lottery”. Tell them they can pick their own outcome, recommend Collaborative Law, and send them to us.

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