Coming up on a year ago now I had an incident with my taxi where a customer bumped his head on my boot. Fast forward to now and it looks like he is going to issue a county claims action against me.
So the full story is (bare with me, this might get lengthy) I picked the guy and his wife up from the supermarket with their shopping and took them home. At the address I helped them with their shopping out of the boot. All the bags were out of the boot, there was just a bit of paper left in there, a receipt I presume, so I pressed the button to close the boot. The car was a Skoda Superb with an electric boot. The guy then proceeds to reach into the boot to get the receipt. I quickly put my hand up to stop the boot from lowering any further but of course the boot was now lower than it was when he reached in and as such he bumped his head on the boot on the way out. Remember he went into the boot AFTER I hit the button to close the boot.
I apologised to him and asked him if he was ok, and rubbing his head he said yes, he’s fine. There was no cut, no bleeding. So I thought everything was fine.
Fast forward about a week and I picked them up again. I jokingly (I guess you could say flippantly) reminded him to watch his head on the boot this time thinking he would take it in good humour. Big mistake. He didn’t say anything to me but he did call my office to complain about my attitude. Fast forward a few weeks and I receive an email off my insurance company telling me that he is making a claim against me.
It turns out that he has gone to the hospital claiming he’s getting dizzy spells and feeling faint or something or other like that. But he only went to the hospital AFTER the second time I picked him up and made the joke, over a week after the bump. He has not provided any more medical reports of further visits to the hospital.
My insurance company declined his claim but now he is seeking to take it to county court and my insurance company has contacted me again asking if I want to settle with him or take it further.
I’m all for going to court with this because I believe I did nothing wrong and he’s only doing it because of my stupid joke.
What would you guys do in my shoes?
Cheers,
Ivor.
Edit to add, he’s claiming I closed the boot on his head.
Last edited by jaytip; 10th July 2020 at 11:01.
What pondlife to go to court over that. Should be given community service for wasting people’s time. Don’t have any advice I’m afraid.
The chances of a brain injury from bumping your head on a boot must be pretty tiny, unless he absolutely clattered into it?
Last edited by Dark Side of The Loon; 11th July 2020 at 09:51.
Only going to hospital after the second pickup means he loses his credibility imo and it looks more like trying to teach you a lesson than anything else. If you have legal cover on your insurance I would make sure they are looped in and fighting your corner.
In the meantime I would refuse them service from here on out and warn your office as they might not want to deal with him either.
No advice to offer other what evidence does he have but you have my sympathies.
I'm going to cut this down to what I think the key information.
Effectively it comes down to a) your appetite for risk and b) if your insurance company lawyer thinks he has a case and c) if you want to take it on on the basis of principle.Originally Posted by jaytip
Many people would settle on the basis of A and B while others C would be the most important factor.
As a professional driver you must have public liability insurance right? Can you raise the issue with the insurer? Irrespective of how and why it happened, are there any legal bodies that assist drivers in similar positions?
I wouldn’t be surprised if your insurance company is just wanting to roll over and pay up - they generally do even though they know the ‘victim’ is playing the game as it’s often easier and cheaper for them to do so.
The cynic in me is wondering why your insurance company is offering you the option of perusing it, that should be their decision alone and they would simply ask you to support them with a court appearance if they’re confident of a win and want to take him on.
Your insurance company are not asking you to assume risk are they I.e. if you want to pursue it further and lose in court, it’s on your dime?
When we expanded our business we ended up buying a second office which was a small two up two down house with low ceilings. We had signage everywhere telling clients to ‘mind their head’. One of my advisers was doing a mortgage appointment with a client who banged his head - not hard from the advisers memory and the client continued with the appointment. He then came back a week later and did a second appointment. We then sold the house as we’d found an office large enough for everyone. The client then did another appointment maybe 3 months later - nothing was ever said throughout all this. In fact my colleague mentioned the client was always friendly. . . .
Six months down the road I get a letter from an ambulance chaser claiming I’d ‘deliberately caused damage to my client’.
Our insurance investigator thought there was something dodgy about the claim - fortunately the estate agent had pictures from the sale with all our warning signs. He went to town on the claimant and asked for Doctors records for evidence. The claim mysteriously stopped.
A year later the client saw my adviser in the street and had the bare faced cheek to say ‘yeh I tried to sue your boss when I banged my head but 3 days before I’d been doing some painting in my lounge and fell off a ladder and banged my head and went to the Doctors and they had that on record. When the investigators wanted medical records I knew I’d lose’.
He worked as a cells officer/worker at the local Police station so would have known all about claims I’m guessing.
Scum bag. Personally I’d fight it and you should have public liability to back you up I’m guessing.
Thanks for the advice so far guys. I do indeed have legal cover and public liability so I’m going to have a good long chat with my insurance company to get everything on the table.
I had a quick chat with the guy dealing with this claim this morning and his attitude came across as ‘let’s just settle it’ even though he didn’t say as much.
I’m going to pop to the office of the company I was working for at the time and have a chat with the manager. They will have a record of the last two trips I did with these scumbags.....err, I mean customers, and I’m hopeful that they will provide me with a letter confirming that it was after the second and last trip that they called the office to complain about me. I think that documentation would go some way should we end up in court over this.
Let the insurance company deal with it (public liability rather than motor).
They’ll settle for a small amount as it’s far cheaper than fighting it.
A solicitor friend once gave me some very sage advice; going to court on a matter of principle is the absolute worst reason to do so.
Crikey, what a chump! Let them take you to court, all you can do is say what happened.
Hopefully you may get away with it because of the delay in his moaning (a year!) about his symptoms.
I think a judge will pick this idiot up as an opportunist
I wouldn't be picking him up any more if you had a choice.
Insurers very rarely roll over and pay a claim simply because it's easier. It's a question of economics. Litigation is won and lost based on what you can prove happened, not what it has been said has happened.
They are asking if the OP is prepared to go to court, as quite often, if an insured (or claimant) has to stand in court, in front of a "Judge" and swear under oath their version of events, it can alter that individuals recollection of what actually happened, sometimes to the extent that they decide that going to court is no longer a good idea.
If you are not prepared to give evidence in court, then there is no point in them trying to defend it further.
If it comes down to one persons word against another then its luck of the draw on who the "judge" believes or what the judge feels most likely to have happened, which is influenced by pretty much anything.
In the OP's case, he agrees an incident took place where the claimant hit his head on the car boot (for what ever reason).
The causation of the injury is one persons word against another. so unless there were any witnesses to exactly what happened, the judge will have to decide who they believe and which account is likely to be correct based on "the balance of probabilities". (note that is different from Criminal Law where the onus of proof is "Beyond all reasonable doubt".) The onus of proof is on the claimant to prove what he said happened
If the claimant goes to court with evidence from a medical expert that he suffered a head injury as a result of hitting his head on the boot and that this impact is now causing his dizzy spells etc, then unless there is equal or greater expert evidence that the head injuries are not accident related, the judge will believe the qualified medical expert.
The fact that the claimant didn't seek medical treatment immediately does not in itself mean he can't claim, although it may weaken his case. A claimant has 3 years after an injury becomes apparent to bring a claim.
In this case he may not been intending to make a claim, but then started suffering symptoms so changed his mind, or simply is being a grumpy so and so, didn't appreciate the "mind your head" comment so decided to have a go, or more likely has seen or been approached by a "No win, no fee" ambulance chaser and talked into bringing a claim to get some cash.
Last edited by Kris; 10th July 2020 at 14:29.
Thanks for this, something to think about. I’m hoping, should it go to court, the fact that he only contacted the office to complain and then went to the hospital after the second pick up and me making the joke would show the judge that he’s just trying it on because he’s pissed off with me.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe your version of events but ...
The driver closed the boot on my head, it was agony but I was trying to soldier on. However, it was getting worse every day. I even booked another trip with the driver. It’s only when I realised how bad it actually was and the fact he showed no remorse I thought I better get it checked out. To be honest I was more concerned about his future passengers as he was so blasé he even made a joke knowing I was in pain. He took no responsibility.
The worlds geared up to chancers at present
Last edited by Rodder; 10th July 2020 at 21:17.
I would be checking to see if he is a serial claimer.
Our insurers paid out to an absolute con artist of a tenant. Everyone knew it was a fraudulent claim and we were desperate to get the tenant into court but the insurers decided the risk of a “rogue” judgement wasn’t worth it so they paid out. Can’t remember how much the scum, ambulance-chasing, daytime-TV-advertising solicitors got.
Interesting. We couldn’t make that decision in our case; it was the insurers call as they were standing behind it financially.
30-40%
It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Everyone is "honest" until money is involved.
No worries. Feel free to Dm if you want to discuss it more.
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