An American personal injury legal firm is warning claimants not to settle claims too quickly with BP and inadvertently sign away rights to compensation for future damages.

BP has already compensated victims of the Gulf oil spill crisis nearly $400 million dollars, with $20 billion put aside for future claims.

US firm Beasley Allen says claimants should take a hard line against BP’s settlement protocol and is also saying the compensation fund organised by BP may need to be larger to handle the growing number of compensation claims being lined up.

The Beasley Allen Law Firm, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, warns those injured by the BP oil spill to approach claims settlements with caution.

New information has been released that reveal how BP will distribute funds to compensate people who were damaged as a result of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Beasley now believes the $20 billion fund is grossly inadequate.

“There are still questions that need to be answered about any future and final claim protocols,” says Jere Beasley, founding shareholder of the company.

“It’s essential that those injured and damaged by the oil spill, both economically and physically, have access to funds needed immediately for emergency relief, while retaining the right to pursue future damage claims against the oil companies through the courts.”

BP has promised to fully compensate the thousands of claimants who have suffered losses and has set up an unprecedented pot of money to handle claims.

However, Beasley Allen says there are protocols for the compensation fund which will require people and businesses to waive their rights to sue BP and other companies involved in the disaster.

This could be detrimental for claimants who cannot determine at this time the full impact of the oil spill.

“To say that people who are hurting now and need help now can’t get that help without giving away their future rights, is not true justice and is just plain wrong.

“Our goal is to help bring BP and other entities responsible to justice,” Beasley says.

Beasley Allen is a major name in civil litigation in the US. The company has been involved in a number of landmark injury compensation cases.

BP compensation cases they are handling include commercial fishing businesses, retail firms, restaurants, real estate companies, property owners, and those suffering personal injuries from the disaster.

In the most recent statistics from BP’s claims team, it has revealed that it has already paid $368 million to individuals and businesses.

BP made more than $102 million in claims payments during the first 16 days of August. Payments to claimants in past months were $134 million in July, $93 million in June, and $39 million in May, making their compensation settlement package one of the largest claim payment programmes conducted in a three and a half month period.

BP is in the final stages of preparing to transfer responsibility for individual and business claims related to the oil spill to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), an independent fund.

The transfer of the management of compensation claims was expected to be completed on August 23 2010.

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Former miners who claim they received inadequate compensation for Vibration White Finger under a Government scheme are launching a legal challenge.

A Government compensation scheme was set up just over ten years ago to settle compensation claims but many miners now say that they did not receive the full amounts they were entitled to.

At least eight companies are expected to face a personal injury legal compensation action from around 25 former pit workers for Vibration White Finger (VWF), a serious debilitating condition caused by using vibrating machinery and power tools.

The companies are facing compensation claims, thought to be in the region of £450,000, at Leeds County Court.

It has long been felt by many former miners and the lawyers representing them that they have missed out on the full compensation due for their Vibration White Finger injuries.

Millions have been paid out to miners as a result of a Government industrial injury scheme but lawyers have long argued that many miners were allowed to settle their claim for too little, missing out on many benefits they were entitled to.

Industrial compensation specialists Mellor Hargreaves are handling the claims for the former coalminers which are expected to be landmark cases.

The planned compensation battle will centre on the original service given to miners which in some cases was alleged to be inadequate.

A number of cases relating to this issue have already been settled out of court.

If the upcoming Vibration White Finger injury claims are successful it is thought that there will be more ex-miners waiting in the wings to launch claims of their own.

Exposure to hand and arm vibration can result in a wide range of health problems known as Vibration White Finger and also Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome or HAVS.

It is estimated more than 300,000 people are suffering from Vibration White Finger in the UK.

By law employers must carry out risk assessments and identify measures to eliminate or reduce risks of Vibration White Finger.

Originally compensation payments were made to miners suffering from Vibration White Finger under the Coal Health Compensation Scheme.

The Government scheme was set up to compensate former miners for two types of injury – lung disease from breathing in coal dust and Vibration White Finger.

The UK miners industrial injury scheme has paid out £4.1 billion since it was set up for both Vibration White Finger and lung disorder injuries.

However, the ex-miners now claim injuries were under-compensated for the VWF, a condition that causes pain or numbness and inability to perform manual handling operations.

Vibration White Finger, or Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome as it is also known, includes symptoms in fingers, hands and arms caused by continual vibration pressure.

The vibration is thought to injure small nerves and blood vessels in the fingers, leading to loss of function and touch.

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A man working for a haulage firm has received a six figure personal injury compensation payout.

The man, whose name has not been released but who worked as a shunter, was helping to load pallets on to wagons.

The man was seriously injured when he was flung from a barrow truck while working at a UK haulage company and has since received £245,000 in personal injury compensation.

The injury occurred as he reversed the truck to straighten it and then move forward. But it slid and spun around, throwing him off and causing the injury. The man’s leg was trapped between one of the bars at the side of the truck and a barrier on a wall, leading to a crushing injury and the man suffered a broken tibia.

His solicitors report that he continues to suffer major, regular pain and has limited mobility in his leg.

Carol Wild of Thompsons Solicitors, the law firm which handled the compensation claim, says:

“This was a serious accident that could have been avoided if the employer had ensured that there was proper maintenance and care of the workplace, which would have been a lot cheaper long-term for the employer than having to pay substantial compensation to their injured employee.”

Les Dobbs, a senior organiser with trade union GMB who helped the injured man make his claim for compensation, also commented:

“Haulage is a dangerous industry and unfortunately our members working in it do suffer serious injuries. All too often there is insufficient or non-existent observance of health and safety systems that will prevent or reduce accidents.”

The serious injuries suffered and the scale of the compensation payout following the accident which occurred in October 2006, highlights the seriousness of accidents at work involving trucks, fork lift trucks and other types of transport and haulage.

That year alone falls in the freight by road industry caused 299 major injuries in the UK including one fatality. Over two thirds of the falls were from vehicles. Common accident at work falls in this area are falls from trailers and truck cabs.

Overall, about ten people are killed each year in forklift truck accidents at work in the UK involving different types of accidents, including being run over and loads falling from trucks. Thousands of workers are also injured due to these types of accidents.

In fact, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statistics highlights transport as the second biggest cause of work-related deaths, after falls from height.

Every year, around 70 people are killed in transport-related accidents at work in the UK.

Forklift trucks cause about one quarter of all serious workplace transport injuries, but other vehicles such as HGVs and ordinary cars and vans are also involved in this type of workplace injury too.

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The use of iPods and other hand held gadgets is causing an increasing number of Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs), says the Automobile Association (AA), who is describing the problem facing road users and pedestrians variously as ‘iPod oblivion’ and the curse of the ‘iPod Zombies.’

Texting while driving or walking, listening to music players, using mobile phones and other hand held technologies such as electronic organisers is a growing concern for the AA, which is warning the public about just how lethal such practices can be, especially for pedestrians, cyclists and car drivers.

Pedestrians and joggers are especially at risk of turning into zombified victims of accidents as they move around in a world of their own while using music players, mobile phones and electronic gadgets, the AA says, leading to potentially fatal injuries and accidents involving road vehicles.

The AA has reported numerous incidents of pedestrians stepping out into traffic oblivious of incoming vehicles; and situations like drivers of vehicles breaking down on the hard shoulder of motorways and then pacing up and down while on a mobile phone, oblivious to the dangers of traffic whizzing by.

AA President Edmund King says: “We can’t stop the march of technology but we need to halt the iPod pedestrian, cycle and driver zombies.

“Whether on two feet, two wheels or four, too many people are suffering from so-called ‘iPod oblivion.’

“When on the move our brains have much to take in and using technological gadgets means that our brains can’t always concentrate on so many things at once. This is when we walk into traffic, don’t hear the truck or drive cocooned from the outside world.”

Although not just identifying the use of iPods but all brands of smart devices, AA patrols have noted a marked increase in the number of zombified pedestrians and joggers, oblivious to traffic around them as they cross busy roads.

It is thought that pedestrians’ lack of attention may be a factor in some of the frighteningly high numbers of 500 pedestrian accidents leading to deaths in the last year; or the staggeringly high 26,887 pedestrian casualties last year.

Analysis from AA Insurance shows that pedestrian inattention could be the cause of up to 17 accident collisions daily. The AA says there has been a five per cent increase in these types of collisions in the last year.

Tellingly, more than half of AA Insurance claims involving a pedestrian include causes such as people on a phone stepping out but not looking, pedestrians just walking out into the path of a vehicle, pedestrians looking the wrong way and people walking into the sides of cars.

Around 20 per cent of these claims were for accidents where the driver swerved to avoid a pedestrian and then hit something else – for example: another car, a street bollard, or a lamp-post.

In one such Road Traffic Accident, a driver swerved to avoid a pedestrian in the road but the vehicle ending up hitting a chemist shop.

RTA pedestrian injuries also include cases where pedestrians are drunk.

The AA is particularly keen to highlight the worrying trend reported by its patrols of people breaking down on hard shoulders of motorways; and then pacing back and forwards, whilst using mobile phones with lorries and HGVs speeding by just feet away.

No matter what the situation though, the AA wishes to highlight the dangers of hand held technologies while out and about.

It is the use of such technology on the move leading to a lack of concentration which is starting to pose a major risk for road safety.

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Workers suffering from asbestos related disease can apply for a £5,000 injury compensation payment, the Ministry of Justice has announced.

The Ministry of Justice are in a position to start accepting claims.

The announcement follows a long running saga in which the previous Government was accused of abandoning victims suffering from asbestos related illnesses after it announced earlier this year that it would not change a Law Lords ruling preventing sufferers of pleural plaques from claiming compensation.

Pleural plaques are a scarring of the lungs which shows exposure to asbestos has taken place.

People who had already started a legal claim for compensation will now be given a £5,000 payment. It is thought the payments will be available for around 6,000 people affected by pleural plaques.

The scheme gives sufferers in England and Wales until August 1 2011 to lodge their compensation claim, the Ministry of Justice has said.

Speaking in February then Justice Secretary Jack Straw said on the basis of medical evidence received during consultation a conclusion was not possible; the Law Lords decision should be changed or an open ended compensation scheme should be set up.

Secretary of State Jack Straw said:

“We are firmly committed to supporting people with asbestos-related diseases and intend to build on and extend the measures which we have already introduced in this area.

“To that end the government will work to increase medical research into asbestos-related diseases, speed up and simplify claims procedures for mesothelioma sufferers, increase interim payments for mesothelioma sufferers and their dependents, and improve the tracing of past insurance policies needed to make claims.

”We have already published a consultation on establishing an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau which would serve as a fund of last resort so that all who develop mesothelioma receive full compensation.

“In addition, we will make extra-statutory payments to those who had begun but not resolved a legal claim for compensation for pleural plaques prior to the House of Lords decision in 2007.”

On 17 October 2007, the Law Lords upheld a Court of Appeal decision that the existence of pleural plaques does not constitute actionable or compensatable damage. The courts had previously regarded the existence of plaques themselves as damage and compensation had routinely been paid.

Pleural plaques are small localised areas of fibrosis found within the pleura of the lung and are caused by asbestos exposure. They do not usually cause major symptoms and do not impair lung function but the issue is that they are a sign of exposure to asbestos.

Evidence from the reviews from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council and the Chief Medical Officer shows that to be the case.

Also they do not become malignant or lead to mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases.

Any increased risk of a person with pleural plaques developing an asbestos related disease is due to that person’s exposure to asbestos rather than because of the plaques themselves.

More information can be found at www.justice.gov.co.uk

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