Personal injury news roundup: 7 days ended 11 Feb 2014:
I know that the courts have little regard for age, but it seems that older Brits are increasingly finding themselves in injury claims.
Or at least it certainly feels that way, judging by the kinds of strange personal injury compensation claims that have been publicised lately involving the over-60s. In fact, one Cofton Hackett man in his 60s, a Mr Bruce Wilson, ended up having to pay out on a £2,600 personal injury claim after he got out of his vehicle, punched a cyclist right in the head, and then threw his bicycle like it were a pair of stone tablets and he was Charleton Heston in a fake beard.
The altercation apparently was caused when Mr Wilson nearly hit the cyclist as the older man was trying to get into the passenger side of a vehicle. There was a verbal confrontation, which led to the physical one – and the £5,000 custom racing cycle suffering quite a bit of damage. To Mr Wilson’s credit he did accept full responsibility for the incident even though the cyclist certainly played a role as well.
Of course it’s not all older Brits causing trouble; some are victims as well. One 60 year old man, a former Ford worker, actually just walked off with £33,000 in damages thanks to the hard work of his personal injury solicitor after it was decided that the ‘occupational asthma’ he had developed was due to the poor conditions of the the motor manufacturer’s plant where the gent had worked as a toolmaker for quite some years.
Apparently when you work for years in an environment that’s not vented properly, and for a company that doesn’t provide you with breathing masks or filters, if you spend your days fabricating metal tools you end up breathing in all sorts of terrible steel and cast iron dust. Apparently, that’s likely to cause some rather terrible respiratory problems – something that Ford seemed to not think about until they were presented with this massive bill!
Well they brought it on themselves, if you ask me. Those pillocks should keep a closer eye on the wellbeing of their own employees!