ASBESTOS CLAIMS UPDATE TRAINING

A comprehensive guide to running a successful asbestos claim

I am delighted to announce that I will be joining leading asbestos claims practitioner Daniel Easton again this year in presenting our asbestos claims training for the Association of Personal Injuries Lawyers. We are running this course on 1 May and 20 June 2015.

This full day course carries 6 CPD points.

Asbestos related claims is one of the most dynamic areas of personal injury law, featuring several Government initiatives and a plethora of abstruse principles and semantic points of contention. Our objective is to cover all the substantive law and procedural aspects of this complex field of practice - clearly and succinctly.

We guarantee that you won't get bored!

We have some fascinating new cases to share with you. The Fairchild exception has been reevaluated in Henegham v Manchester Dry Docks Ltd and others [2014] EWHC 4190 (QB) where Mr Justice Jay has provided the first direct ruling on the application of the Fairchild rule in lung cancer cases; it offers fresh, if controversial, insights and  is likely to be appealed.

The Supreme Court decision in International Energy Group Ltd v Zurich Insurance Plc UK is expected imminently. There are also some important decisions on the foresight of injury, the duty of care and limitation and a host of important practical matters to share.

We provide a comprehensive set of notes and materials as all the text books are now badly out of date.

If you handle industrial disease claims or are interested in diversifying your practice into this highly technical field, then this is one course you cannot afford to miss.

To attend one of these courses, please contact the lovely people at APIL.

Some of the very kind feedback we have received:

• They make a very complex area of law understandable. 

• Most comprehensive documents / course materials to ever accompany a course I have attended - thank you! 

• Nicholas Bevan's notes and speaking was incredibly comprehensive and the notes will be useful reference going forward.

THE DELANEY APPEAL

The Court of Appeal's decision is expected soon.

In June last year I posted a blog reporting on Mr Justice Jay's important decision in Delaney v Secretary of State for Transport [2014] EWHC 1785, see DfT EXPOSED FOR DEFYING EU LAW.

I have been following this case with great interest.

This was a case in which the claimant was injured in a road traffic accident whilst riding in the car as a passenger.  He was refused compensation, first by the responsible driver's motor insurers and later by the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB). When he pursued his claim in court, he failed in the High Court and again in the Court of Appeal (Delaney v Pickett [2011] EWCA Civ 1532). I wrote a series of no holes barred critiques of both decisions in the New Law Journal and elsewhere explaining that our national law provision that permits the MIB to exclude liability to compensate such victims is inconsistent with superior European law and how both courts had failed in their duty to apply a European law consistent interpretation of our defective national law provision.

Unfortunately the European law aspect of this case came to the notice of the parties too late to take the case on to the Supreme Court.  A fresh team of barristers was instructed to pursue a claim against the Secretary of State for Transport, seeking compensation for the loss sustained by the claimant through the minister's failure to fully implement the European directives on motor insurance.  The claimant won this time.

Furthermore, the trial judge was highly critical of the minster's failure to undertake a proper comparative law exercise to ensure that the law that he was responsible was compliant with the relevant European law, despite the need for such a review being obvious following an earlier legal challenge.

However, the Secretary of State appealed that decision.  The Court of Appeal heard the minister's appeal on 10 and 11 February this year. Its judgment is expected sometime this Spring.  It would be wrong to comment on the likely outcome of the appeal but the writer is confident of a just outcome.

I will comment on the Court of Appeal's decision as soon as this is known.

The Delaney case is the tip of the iceberg. I have identified over 40 instances where our national law implementation fails to comply with the minimum standards of compensatory protection required under European law.

ANTI EUROPEAN MEDIA SPIN

Click on the image to access the full article

On 25 February, in what appears to have been a coordinated act, both the Mail and the Sunday Express published ill informed reports blaming European Court ruling for compelling the UK government to extend the third party motor insurance requirement to lawn-mowers and golf buggies. The decision alluded to (Damijan Vnuk v Zavarovalnica Triglav C-162/13) had been published several months previously, on 4 September 2014, and so was hardly news. They quoted a Conservative party spokesman as describing the European law as 'bonkers'.

I was invited by the cross-party pro European group, British Influence, to comment.

My article points out that the alarmist claim that our motor insurance premiums will rise by £100 is wrong.  The tabloid articles claimed the recent ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the nature and scope of the motor insurance requirement will force owners of golf buggies and lawn mowers to take out third party motor insurance under Road Traffic Act 1988.  I explain why this is unnecessary.

MOTOR CLAIMS UPDATE

Motor Claims: Extensive Reforms & Full Legal Update

On 15 June in London and 16 June in Manchester

I am delighted to be invited to present my full day of training for MBL again this year. See below for the details.

Please contact MBL Seminars direct to make a booking.

This course carries 6 CPD points and is APIL accredited.

'Excellent speaker, very enthusiastic and probably the best I've seen'

Lisa Mulgrew, Solicitor, PCJ Solicitors

This course covers the latest liability decision and delivers cutting-edge new thinking in response to several important developments that challenge several longstanding misconceptions about claimants' rights under national and European law.

It will explain the key principles and it will apply them through fun interactive sessions so as to make the training accessible to all levels of fee earner. it will take you through all the practical steps to ensure that your clients recover their full compensatory entitlement: whether from a contractual or statutory RTA insurer, an owner in breach of the statutory duty to insure or from the Motor Insurers Bureau.

Delegates will be left with a clear understanding of the core principles and how to apply and enforce the more generous level of compensatory protection afforded under Community law.

What You Will Learn
This course will cover the following:

• Compensation Recovery and why we cannot take our national law provision at face value
• Key provisions within the Road Traffic Act 1988, the EC Rights Against Insurers Regulations 2002 and the MIB Agreements
• Minister held liable for unlawful MIB exclusion clause
• Three very important Court of Appeal decisions that expose the flaws in UK implementation of the European Motor Insurance Directives
• Community Law - understanding the core principles and how to apply and enforce the more generous level of compensatory protection afforded under Community law
• What's wrong with the RTA 1988 and MIB Agreements - a fun interactive session where delegates identify for themselves flaws within the RTA 1988 and the MIB Agreements
• Update on the Delaney appeal and why this case is so important to every fee earner
• What is the legal standing of an Article 75 insurer?
• Liability Update
• The latest liability decisions
• Priority at a roundabout - is it just a question of who crosses the line first?
• Is there a duty to slow down to help an overtaking driver?
• Ex turpi causa defences and their proper use explained
• The relevance of the Highway Code
• New thinking on Highways Act claim
• Does the national road maintenance code set the standard?
• Why Bolam might be relevant to a Highways Act claim?
• Apportionment of liability and Contributory Negligence
• General principles/Seat belt update/Cycle helmets
• Appealing a first instance apportionment of liability
• Children cases/drunk pedestrians/drunk drivers and more
• Accidents abroad
• Overview of the rules for jurisdiction and applicable law
• New cases that make it easier to claim in the UK for an accident in the EU
• Damages
• Update on loss of use and credit hire
• Why reform is likely
• Law reform
• Why the European Commission is investigating the UK national law provision for RTA victims
• Latest on the sacking of the minister responsible for the flawed DfT review of the MIB Agreements
• Latest on the Competition Commission enquiry into dysfunctional insurer practices
• Latest on the MoJ proposals for whiplash claims

THIRD PARTY MOTOR INSURANCE LEGAL UPDATE

THIRD PARTY MOTOR INSURANCE - The Vnuk Ruling

Half day's training on Motor Insurance law on 20th March 2015, in Manchester

Last September the Court of Justice for the European Union delivered what is possibly the most important ruling on the true nature, scope and extent of the third party motor insurance requirement imposed under the European directives on motor insurance. The decision in Damijan Vnuk v Zavarovalnica Triglaw exposes fundamental defects in the UK national law provision for safeguarding the compensatory entitlement of motor accidents.

Vnuk has an immediate and retrospective effect which not only extends the geographic and technical scope of third party motor insurance but also opens up new litigation opportunities for victims who have already been wrongly refused or denied compensation either from a motor insurer or the MIB.

This course will cover the following:

Conflict of Laws

·                     1934 - 2014 The Road Traffic Act - Qualified cover and restrictive scope

·                     1973 - 1990 Three European Directive - Evolving provision

·                     1996 - 2014 Six Court of Justice rulings culminating in Vnuk

The New Overriding Comprehensive Protective Principle

·                     The insurance requirement

·                     The compensating body

·                     The direct right

European Law Basics

·                     Consistent interpretation of national law and its limits

·                     Basic European law principles

·                     Applying EU law, direct effect, indirect effect

Getting Stuck In

·                     Comparing UK and EU provision

o                  The duty to insure and scope of cover

o                  The permitted exclusions and restrictions

o                  The new role of the MIB, the canard that’s no swan

o                  Which leading authorities are not obsolete or plain wrong

·                     Imminent Reform

o                  Immediate and retrospective effect

o                  DfT Shambles and catch up on derogated vehicles

·                     Myth Busting

o                  Why we are no longer just RTA practitioners

o                  Why the MIB is more than a private contractor and why this matters more than ever before

o                  Why ‘article 75 insurers’ are a confidence trick

o                  Why many common policy restrictions in use are unlawful

·                     New Opportunities

o                  New types of claim

o                  Why we are all European lawyers now

o                  Better, more extensive, compensatory safeguards

o                  Spotting EU law breaches and selecting winners

o                  Remedies

Time Permitting: Foreign Accidents in the EU: Easier, Quicker, Simpler

·                     Jurisdiction and Brussels 1

·                     Applicable law and Rom II and the Hague Convention

·                     Procedural Innovation

·                     New Opportunities

All original cutting edge material all this within an amazing 3 hours!  APIL accredited with 3 CPD points.

To book your place, please contact MBL Seminars direct.

Recent feedback from delegates:

• Nick is a brilliant and enthusiastic speaker
• Nick made a rather dry and technical subject understandable and, dare I say it, fun’  ‘In one hour Mr Bevan presented the best overview of the civil justice reforms that I have read or heard’  
• The course notes are superb
• Excellent speaker, very enthusiastic and probably the best I've seen
• Great materials, very knowledgeable, very detailed notes
• Enthusiasm of the speaker regarding the current application of EU law put a new perspective
• on how we look at this area of law and how this should be used to the clients advantage, very
• interesting!
• The speaker made a quite complicate subject very clear and easy to follow, taking time to
• explain points he thought needed more explanation H
• Course materials in vast quantity and detail - a good thing 
• Delivered with great enthusiasm 
• Fantastically knowledgeable speaker
• I found Nick Bevan one of the most knowledgeable and interesting speakers i have been on a course with in a long time
• Very enthusiastic and passionate speaker
• V passionate, much better than the other speakers in this area
• Extremely knowledgeable, very comprehensive

THE CASE FOR REFORM

Two years have passed since the Department for Transport's abortive review on reforming the Motor Insurance Bureau Agreements.  These are supposed to ensure that the compensatory entitlement of motor accident victims is not jeopardised by the driver at fault being under-insured, having no insurance at all or for failing to stop. 

The Motor Insurance Bureau (MIB) is supposed to compensate victims in an equivalent and effective way and to the same level that a victim would expect from a fully insured defendant motorist.  Unfortunately both arrangements as well as the statutory framework for the compulsory third party insurance requirement are badly flawed. Successive minsters have granted the motor insurers numerous concessions that allow insurers and the MIB to reduce or evade liability completely. This undermines the original Parliamentary intention at the time the initial scheme was set up in 1930 and it also defies common sense as it exposes law abiding citizens to the risk of recovering nothing and in the case of serious injury, forcing them to become a burden on their relatives, their local authority and on the State.

The minister's February 2013 consultation was abandoned after his deeply flawed proposals were revealed for what they in the consultation responses.  The minister was reminded that our entire national law provision in this area was riddled with loopholes that favoured motor insurer's commercial interests at the expense of the victims that the various schemes was supposed to protect. He was told that urgent and wide-spread reform was necessary.  More to the point, the minister was advised that the defects conflict with the minimum standards of compensatory safeguards required under European law. 

The minister's promised a detailed report that has never materialised, yet he cynically agreed the MIB's request to amend the Untraced Drivers Agreement 2003 within just 4 days of the consultation period expiring in April 2013, to excludes a victim's right to recover property damage unless the victim has been hospitalised for four or more days. This proposal, which was not mentioned in the ministers consultation paper, abolished the right to recovery property damage in an untraced driver claim in all but a tiny minority of cases.  This is inconsistent with European law. 

In my article, Changing Gear, published in the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers journal PI Focus, I argue the case for reform and urge personal injury lawyers to undertake an urgent audit of their know-how and case management software as much of our national law provision, including our case law, cannot be taken at face value as it conflicts with superior European law. 

Please click on the image below to access the full article.

Click on the image to read the article in full.

 

MOTOR LIABILITY UPDATE

Road Traffic and Motor Claims Update

I am presenting a full day of training on all aspects of motor liability for the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers on 4 June, 10 June and 12 June.

It used to be the case that nothing much happened in motor and road traffic liability law, now the so much has happened and in the process of happening that every text book on the topic is badly out of date.  What we used to term as road traffic practice now involves cutting edge new comparative law, European law , motor insurers liability and its remedies and a host of new and interesting liability and quantum decisions. If you handle any 'rta' claims, this is a course you cannot afford to miss.

To book your place, contact those lovely people at the APIL office: CONTACT APIL

This course attracts 6 CPD points.

Recent feedback on MIB, RTA and Motor Insurer Liability training delivered for APIL:

• ‘Nick is a brilliant and enthusiastic speaker’  ‘
• 'Nick made a rather dry and technical subject understandable and, dare I say it, fun’  
• ‘The course notes are superb’
• 'Very enthusiastic and passionate speaker'
• 'V passionate'  '
• 'Extremely knowledgeable, very comprehensive'

  APIL Delaney webinar feeback Sept 2014:
 'I found Nicholas Bevan engaging, enthusiastic, highly amusing and knowledgeable'

• 'Thank you for this enthusiastic presentation!'
• 'Speaker kept presentation style chatty and thus interesting'