Claiming compo from my employer for an injury received at work.
Company insurers have made an offer which I turned down.

Have now had a letter saying they have paid a sum into court and they want me to accept this as full and final payment for my claim. I would have accepted but my solicitor and barrister reckon I'll get more if we go to court.

What I want to know is if the judge awards me less than the amount paid in by the insurers would I get that amount, or the money that was already lodged with the court preceeding the hearing.

Cheers

Chip.

You would get the lesser amount. You would be liable for costs ,and could be left with next to nothing.If your solicitor and barrister are confident in winning more ,it's tempting to go with their opinion.The decision is up to you.

rally's comments are 100% correct.

Your solicitor and barrister reckon that you'll get more if you go to court, but then they have nothing to lose because if you don't go to court they don't earn any more fees out of you, whereas if you do go to court and end up with less they still get their fees in any case. This may sound cynical but I have been on the receiving end of enough legal bills to know the truth of it.

Charlie.

it *might* be an idea to get a second opinion but do it in a clever way.

Whenever I have a situation like that (where the solicitor has a benefit in taking it forward) I bite the bullet on the expense of going to see another solicitor and telling them up front that they will not get the case, but you want genuine independant advice.

Don't tell them who the solicitors are (that you are already dealing with) as that can complicate things in a number of ways.

That way, the new solicitors have nothing to gain apart from the money you spend on that one consultantion, and you can offset that cost against the ammount you will take from the court now, or potentially get if they are BOTH confident that you should go forward.

The decision is obviously yours, and you should not be swayed by personal experiences of other people (either way), but I *do* have a friend who was in the same situation and wanted to take the money, but his friend (who was a solicitor) told him to go for it and he got 4 times the original amount.

Cheers

Simon

It is a ruse by the other side of course. The gamble is that if you take the money, then they won't have to pay any more out.

If you gamble the other way and go to court (bear in mind that actual court/barrister costs are horrendous & I mean horrendous) then if you don't "beat the payment into court" then you will be liable for both your costs (no win -no fee hopefully? Legal aid?) but also their entire legal costs :eek: That could completely zap any award made.

I like webbie's idea to go and get an alternate advice, but bear in mind that a solicitor will likely err on the side of caution (suing for professional negligence high at the back of their mind) so any advice received may have that caveat added.

I think the problem is likely to be more accute when the amount claimed is close to that sought. Chasing £5k on a £50k payment in is probably not worth it. Is fault an issue here or is it just the amount of compensation?

I think that bottom line, you should seek independant advice (aka webbie suggests) but make sure that you take it from a company that specialises in the area in which you are persuing compensation. Claims farming type operations although good for trip/slip may not be the best in your case.

Also, don't take too much advice from anyone on SN ;)