Solicitor, Lee Dawkins looks at the confusion surrounding admissions of liability in personal injury claims.
One such area is admissions of liability. Ask the average person in the street whether someone who admits they caused an accident should be bound by that admission and they will probably tell you that they should be. The law, however, sees things differently, even where that admission is made by an insurance company or a solicitor.
The ability for defendants to withdraw admissions of liability principally exists to allow for situations where there has been fraud or where new evidence has emerged. That much is commonsense. But in practice admissions of liability have been retracted where a defendant (or the insurers) have simply changed their mind.
The effect of this is to cause uncertainty for the accident victim and add stress to an already stressful situation. In my experience, personal injury claimants are looking for assurance that their claim will be dealt with and that they will receive the compensation they deserve. Getting an admission of liability is therefore important. It should give the claimant certainty and peace of mind, but if the admission can be withdrawn at any time, it becomes almost meaningless. If the law is not an ass, it can appear insensitive to the suffering of innocent accident victims who are struggling to put their lives back together.
I have known situations where an admission of liability for personal injury has been retracted literally years after it was first made. Imagine how an accident victim who has suffered serious injury would be left feeling in those circumstances. It would seem as though the claim had gone back to square one, with the claimant now left facing an uncertain outcome.
It is particularly difficult to stomach where longstanding admissions of liability are withdrawn for no obvious reason, other than an insurer or case handler simply changing their mind about who was at fault. However, some degree of hope has been given to claimants by the recent case of Roberts -v- Historic Royal Palaces Enterprises [2010]. The judge took into account CPR 14.1 and Practice Direction 7.2, which govern how the court should rule on retractions of admissions of liability. After considering the defendant’s case, the judge refused permission for the admission to be withdrawn, noting that nothing new had emerged which would warrant a retraction.
Although this is good news for claimants in personal injury cases, the window of opportunity is still ajar for defendants looking to backtrack. Accident claims solicitors must therefore continue to treat admissions with caution, especially admissions made very early on in a case before an ample opportunity for a thorough investigation has arisen. Unfortunately for claimants in personal injury cases nothing is certain until the claim has been settled.
