Applied Law - QCF (Edexcel)

Damages (Part 2)

Negligence has many positives and many negatives, the positives of negligence are that negligence gives the opportunity to right a wrong and put the claimant is their original financial position a lot of the time, and everything is vigorously tested in order to the intention that it is justifiable and unbiased additionally negligence is based on legal precedence. The negatives of negligence are that it's a long drawn out process, it can cost a lot to sue in the first place, there's a possibility of being unsuccessful, the insurance will get more expensive and claiming insurance in general can create a compensation culture. I would say that sometimes the law of negligence is subjective and can be based on opinion, for example, the idea of being fair, just and reasonable is based on opinion and other people's thoughts in a court that can cause injustice.

Damages has many positives and negatives also, compensation for damages can be claimed for any losses a claimant has suffered, like negligence puts the claimant the the original financial position and takes into account pain and suffering, the negatives of negligence is anything regarding the defendant's insurance, it doesn't always put you back in the original financial position like in the alton towers case no matter how much that girl sued it isn't going to get her the leg she lost back. Special damages can be good because the defendant gets the market value of an item but it can also be bad as this may differ to what they paid for originally as this changed over time and general damages I would say is not really entirely positive as it puts a price on things that can't always be calculated, like the loss of future earnings or pain and suffering.

Different types of payments can have positives and negatives too, structured payment is good because it allows the defendant to formulate some kind of financial plan especially if a child is involved, it can be bad as if the defendant dies the claimants stop being paid. Lump sums allow your own money management, it allows for payments of houses and cars but it can be spent all at once.Interim payments allow the claimant to claim for any losses after a case has ended if they found out they suffered anymore damages but this is bad as the defendant doesn't know when it could be over.

I believe that we should have a state run benefit scheme that pays out compensation along with personal liability insurance, I believe that paying personal liability insurance should be a choice but if a defendant gets sued and they don't pay insurance the tax that they pay to the scheme should go up more depending on the extent in which they got sued but the person paying the liability insurance will be better covered and have less of a loss than those who choose not to pay it. This means the insurance will be able to cover it along with the scheme and this can be calculated with what the defendant has paid to each one.