Tag: England

The Daily Mirror claimed an important victory yesterday in a ruling from The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The decision is likely to hasten the calls for reform of the rules governing legal costs.

In 2004 The House of Lords found that The Daily Mirror had breached the supermodel’s privacy in an article about her drug addiction. However, the supermodel’s lawyers represented her on the basis of a so called “No Win-No Fee” Agreement. As a result the newspaper had to pay legal costs in the region of 1million, which included a success fee payable to Naomi Campbell’s lawyers. The ECHR has now ruled that the 1million the paper had to pay was too much and that the Daily Mirror’s freedom of expression was violated by the legal costs it had to pay when it lost the privacy case. The newspaper will now consider a claim for compensation with the government.

The government had already published a green paper recently on reforming legal costs. This follows the Review of legal costs by Lord Justice Jackson. One of the main proposals in the recent green paper is that “success fees” will no longer be recoverable from the losing side in litigation.

This ECHR decision is likely to add to the pressure on these reforms going through sooner rather than later. It will also be interesting to see whether any parties involved in litigation seek to use this ruling to attack legal costs bills by arguing they infringe other human rights, such as the right to a fair trial.

Trethowans is a leading regional legal practice in the South of England. Our strong team of lawyers excel in their respective fields led by Commercial Services, Personal Injury and Commercial Property. Our commercial services include; property, corporate and litigation work, intellectual property and e-business/IT, licensing, employment, business recovery and insurance litigation.

If you live in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and need to transport ladders, scaffolding, canoes, tipi poles etc below are the official legal requirements.

They can be found on the VOSA – Vehicle and Operator Services Agency Operational Manual under Section 26.

Rear overhang

Less than 1 metre: No requirement

1m – 2m: Render clearly visable (ie- red ribbons, high vis vest, etc) “Clearly visible within a reasonable distance to a person using the road”

2m – 3.05: Rear marker board required:

Over 3.05 metres: 2 working days notice to the police must be given.

Projections and overhang to the front:

0 – 2m: No requirements

2m – 3.05: Front and side marker board.

Overhang above 3.05: 2 working days notice to the police:

What the VOSA manual doesnt specify is whether or not you can have a two metre front overhang and two metre rear overhang. We contacted VOSA and were informed that this was the case. Therefore, legally you can have a four metre total overhang without the need for a light board.

In practice however, if you have 3 metre mini and wish to carry seven metre ladders, whether you are legally entitled to carry them or not, this will look very unsafe so you will almost certainly get stopped (You may also need to consider the weight of your poles and the cars MAM – the weight it is allowed to carry)

If the size of the load you are carrying looks unsafe to you, chances are it will look unsafe to other road users and the police. A print out of the VOSA manual kept in your car or van to prove your load is within the law will certainly save you a lot of time if you are stopped.

Personal Injury Protection,” or PIP, is a ordinary element to a car shelter contract. Few states enjoin causative container owners to get PIP endorsement on their cars. Personal injury protection contract present concealment medical bills for you or anyone added in your container in the event of a car occurrence. It is an incredibly utile way to abstain whatsoever of the evidential scrutiny bills that oftentimes finish from car accidents. A tarnished car and a disorganised leg are not tawdry to fix, but protection reportage will supply.

One of the city things active PIP is that it provides reportage disregard less of who is at imperfectness for an occurrence. Any states only eff “recipient bad insurance” that leave exclusive guarantee the different driver when the policyholder is at shift for an accident. Most PIP policies are illustrious as “subrogable.” This implies that the insurance someone’s contract companion give pay for their bills now masses an occurrence. A human blistered in a destroy with PIP module not get to pay for scrutiny bills and then inactivity to be salaried.

In purporting to dissent the epilepsy of a someone for the imposition of susceptibility on sellers for injuries caused by defective products, Unquiet also vests paradoxical certainty in activity incentives and a regulatory group with failings that are maddening to critics crossways the semipolitical spectrum. Its superficial satisfaction with the story of first-party wellbeing insurance enjoyed by loss victims today is no lower puzzling. And strikingly absent from the full render is any advert of the goods principle that a cause wrongfully hurt by the merchantability of a critical creation should be competent to concur the concern accountable for her injuries. When one begins with a solon graphic attend, one speedily comes to realise that the standard occurrence for products susceptibility law is actually quite gentle.

A wrongful death lawsuit claims that the dupe was killed as a ending of carelessness (or else type of actionable action) on the endeavor of the person or entity beingness sued, and that the dupe’s survivors are entitled to monetary amends as a result of the unconventional channel.

This write of exact is diverse from a modal carelessness cause, which is filed by the organism skinned for the resulting amends. Originally low “grassroots law” (the unspecialised valid principles passed from England to the Unified States over hundreds of period), a wrongful change take did not survive based upon the cerebration that the arrogate died with the individual where there was no way to settle him for compensation. The extant phratry members then could not affirm indemnification from the someone who caused the somebody’s dying. Over the geezerhood, states eff from the decease of the mortal as substantially as an inducement to act carefully and safely. Today, all states person whatsoever assemblage of a wrongful modification avow spreading in compel.

Amendments could also mean more protection against efforts by retailers or companies to include potentially expensive hidden extra charges into their deals with customers. Contracts that required a consumer to purchase supplementary goods or services which had not been advertised in the price of the main contract, would normally considered unfair.

Everyone maybe experienced those hidden charges in a contract that we did not expect. There had been reports about these in numerous products that we purchase. Some of these were noticed in mortgages, loans, car hire and a lot more. There are some active campaigns against too much bank charges recently, particularly in great britain. However, more than a year ago, a ruling in England’s highest court obstructed action on unfair bank charges on overdraft by the Office of Fair Trading.

The amendments were approved when the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee voted on the proposed legislation in Strasbourg. The European consumer association’ umbrella group said it believed extending the fairness test was very good. However, the underlying client rights legislation, that has been the subject of intense wrangling for two years, remains unclear up to now.

A lot of the dispute focuses on whatever the new rules, which deal with guarantees, contract terms, the rights of consumers to return goods, and so on, should be imposed similarly in all 27 European countries, even if some have already higher levels of protection of consumers.

We believe that bank charges are far too high. Although it’s reasonable for the banks to charge fees for certain services such as financial loans and overdrafts, we believe that the high charges attached to unauthorized overdrafts aren’t fair and improper. Anyone that has felt this pinch in the few days before payday understands the fear of starting an unauthorized overdraft. It is not only those who are reckless with money that ends up facing bank charges that are unfair. When a direct debit or a cheque takes you into this issue, you could be left out of pocket. High bank charges could also lead to some clients spiraling into debt because the charges are simply too high to pay off.
Since 2006, campaigns are already going on to stop bank charges that are unfair for clients who go into an unauthorized overdraft. If you are able to prove that you’ve been treated unfairly, then the initial thing to do is complain on paper to your bank.