Personal Injury - Legal Jargon
Making a claim for Personal Injury can be stressful and worrying. We do not want the legal process and the wording we use to make the situation worse so we strive to keep legal jargon to a minimum. We appreciate you will come across terms you may not understand so we have tried to explain these as clearly as possible in the definitions below, so that you fully understand the process you are going through.
If you need further explanation then please do contact us.
Adjournment
When a court hearing is moved to another date.
Affidavit
A formal written declaration made on oath. If the contents of the affidavit are proven to be false then the person who provided the affidavit may be in contempt of Court.
After the Event Insurance (ATE)
When pursuing a no-win no-fee personal injury claim, this policy covers your legal expenses in the event that your claim is lost. This policy is obtained by your representative after the date of the accident.
Aggravated Damages
Additional damages awarded as a result of the Defendant’s conduct. Aggravated Damages are generally to compensate the Claimant for the additional harm that has been suffered (see Damages).
Allocation
The process of deciding which set of court rules to apply to a specific case.
See Small Claims track, Fast track and Multi track.
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
The process of settling a claim on terms decided by the parties outside of the normal Court procedure.
Appeal
In the event that an Order is wrong in law, the process where a party applies to a superior Court to reverse the decision.
Balance of Probabilities
This is the standard of proof in civil cases. Essentially, the party that produces an argument that is most probably true (i.e. more likely than not) will be successful.
Before the Event Insurance (BTE)
This is an insurance policy that covers your legal expenses and losses in the event of an injury or loss. As the name suggests, this is a pre-existing insurance policy that is taken out before the loss or injury.
Breach of Duty
Medical professionals owe their patients a ‘Duty of Care’ – a responsibility to take care of them properly and to a reasonable standard. If the care given to a patient does not live up to the required standard and it could reasonably have been avoided by the professional concerned, then this may be classed as a Breach of Duty. This is also known as “negligence”.