Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’

UK: “£500,000 for youth injured in fall while trespassing”

Carl Murphy, 18, of Merseyside, England, has received £567,000 for injuries sustained while criminally trespassing on the roof of a private warehouse in 1996, from which he fell 40 feet, sustaining multiple injuries. Murphy, who has convictions for robbery, burglary and assault, “received his compensation after suing the company that owned the warehouse. He claimed that if the perimeter fence had not been in disrepair he would not have been able to gain entry and suffer his injuries.” Although groups representing victims of crime expressed anger at his getting a sum 50 times higher than a murder victim’s family could expect to receive from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, Murphy was unapologetic about his windfall, saying he planned to buy “a few houses and a flash car”: “This money is mine now and I’ll do what I want.” Murphy “was expelled from two schools in just over two years after his recovery and his family blamed the fall for his bad behaviour.” And more: “His mother, Diane, and her partner, Kevin Parsons, both 36, are currently serving three years in prison for setting up a heroin and crack cocaine business from their council house.” (Daily Telegraph, Mar. 14; Peter Zimonjic, “I’ll buy houses and a flash car, says yob awarded £567,000”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 20; Joanna Bale, “Trespasser who fell through roof wins payout of £567,000”, The Times, Mar. 14).

Among other lessons to be drawn from the case, it kind of casts doubt on the idea, often heard from trial lawyers on this side of the Atlantic, that people wouldn’t feel such a need to sue if they had UK-style socialized medicine to take care of their injuries for them. More: Ralph Reiland comments in the American Spectator (Nov. 30).

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U.K.: No moor tourists, please

Don’t make plans to visit Vixen Tor on Dartmoor any time soon: “The owner, Mary Alford, was afraid of being sued by members of the public who injured themselves on the tor, which was named after Vixana, a witch who reputedly died there and was turned to stone.” (Richard Savill, “Owner asked to restore access to Vixen Tor”, Telegraph (U.K.), Mar. 5).

More: Via Decs & Excs, Mar. 6, comes word that British Prime Minister Tony Blair has now called for a “real debate over risk”:

Mr Blair said that the fears of public service workers over the potential for a US-style litigation culture had made a deep impact on him.

“I was quite shocked to be told by people who were running a nursery that they were worried about letting the kids out into the playground when it was wet, in case one of them slipped and fell and they ended up having a legal case,” he said.

“We have got to look at a way of getting people protection on that.”

(Andrew Woodcock, “Blair Questions ‘Needless Panic’ over Issues”, The Scotsman, Mar. 5). For more on the “compensation culture” debate, see our U.K. page.

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“‘No link’ between MMR and autism”

Another study finds no link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and rising incidence of autism. (BBC, Mar. 3). For more on the litigation-fueled efforts to establish such a link in Britain, see our earlier reports: Dec. 29, 2003 and Feb. 25, 2004. More: Helene Guldberg, “MMR, autism and politics” (interview with Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick), Spiked-Online (UK), Jun. 23, 2004.

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Welcome Observer (UK) readers

London’s Observer quotes me today on the subject of litigation against schools and in particular the case of Peer Larson, the Wisconsin high school student who’s suing to challenge the right of his honors math teacher to assign homework over the summer (see Jan. 21). (Richard Luscombe, “Homework-hater takes his maths teacher to court”, Jan. 30). Follow the links for more on school litigation and on cheerleader suits (here and here and here.) (In case it isn’t clear from the context, by the way, my mention of large dollar settlements isn’t intended to refer to cheerleading-squad cases). And since overlegalization and the compensation culture are by no means limited to the U.S., we’ve also got a UK section.

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Speechcrime in the UK, cont’d

More on a subject we covered on Dec. 13, Sept. 14, and Jul. 16 of last year: in December British authorities rounded up and arrested the head and various officials of the British National Party, charging them with inciting racial hatred in political speeches (“Let the people of England speak”, The Spectator, Jan. 1). Also in December, the quasiofficial Press Complaints Commission announced a crackdown “on the use of the term ‘illegal asylum seeker’ by newspapers after research revealed its continued usage. Sir Christopher Meyer, the press watchdog’s chairman, has commissioned its cuttings agency to scan all British newspapers for use of the term after a study by the Liberal Democrats showed that the press has ignored the PCC’s guidance issued more than a year ago.” The culture spokesman of the bafflingly named LDP has written to Meyer “calling for harsher punishments for defiant newspapers”, and saying there is “a strong case for considering the imposition of fines on erring newspapers.” (Sarah Hall, “Newspapers flout ruling on asylum seekers”, The Guardian, Dec. 31).

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Iqbal Geoffrey lawsuit

In 1989, London’s Hayward Gallery organized an exhibit of Indian and Pakistani artists. Somehow, they lost or damaged 300 of Iqbal Geoffrey’s works, and Geoffrey says he only found out in 1993. Now, sixteen years later, he’s bringing a lawsuit, claiming that the loss was due to racism, and seeking 65 million pounds in damages. This is presumably meant to be a punitive amount, since his works are generally priced at 786 euros, and were likely insured for the 65,000 pounds the museum offered in compensation. Geoffrey is demanding polygraph tests of museum employees. (Jamie Doward, “Artist accuses top gallery of racial prejudice”, The Observer, Jan. 16).

The previous claim to fame of Geoffrey, a lawyer with an LLM from Harvard, was asking Pakistani courts to halt the Virginia execution of admitted murderer Mir Amail Kasi, who assassinated two people in a terrorist attack outside CIA headquarters in 1993. Geoffrey, who calls himself the world’s greatest living artist, is also apparently known in the Pakistani community as a frequent litigant, including a lawsuit for $800 million or so in rupees for a different perceived slight in 1998. (Khalid Hasan, “Sir Geoffrey the Great”, Friday Times, Jul. 19, 2002). Update Feb. 13: letter to the editor with response from Geoffrey.

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U.K.: Labour backs off ban on fairground goldfish

Fearing ridicule, the Blair government has backed off a clause of an animal welfare bill “which would have outlawed the use of any animal as a competition prize”, and which was largely aimed at the popular practice of awarding a goldfish in a plastic bag as a prize at carnivals. “The scientific jury is still out on fish stress, with one study suggesting goldfish never get bored because their memories are too short to recall what it was they might have been bored about.” (Martin Wainwright, “Labour gets cold feet over ban on fairground goldfish”, The Guardian, Jan. 15).

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Disarming the U.K.

Scotland: In a multi-point program aimed at reducing knife crime, First Minister Jack McConnell has proposed banning the sale of swords; introducing “a licensing scheme for retailers selling knives”; doubling, to four years, the maximum jail term for possessing an offensive weapon; giving police new powers of search and arrest; and raising the age limit for buying a knife to 18, from the current 16. (“Crackdown targets knife culture”, BBC, Nov. 22). And in Yeovil, Somerset, police “have been accused of heavy handedness after arresting two young boys who were playing with toy guns.” The boys, 11 and 13, were wearing Santa Claus and Frankenstein’s-monster costumes and one of them sang the James Bond theme song as they pretended to shoot each other with the toys while rolling around on the floor at a youth club. “One of the boys was held in a cell for five hours.” (Simon de Bruxelles, “Playing with toy gun puts boy, ll, in a cell”, The Times (UK), Dec. 3).

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UK religious insult bill

Britain’s Home Secretary defends the proposed incursion on free speech (David Blunkett, “Religious hatred is no laughing matter”, The Observer, Dec. 12) while a Spectator writer questions whether Blunkett has been “behaving in a manner that suggests he is as mad as a box of frogs” (Rod Liddle, “Ha ha! You can’t insult Islam but I can”, The Sunday Times, Dec. 12). See Jul. 16 and (Australia) Dec. 3. Plus: Matthew Parris weighs in (“Mockery, calumny and scorn: these are the weapons to fight zealots”, The Times, Dec. 11) (via Andrew Stuttaford).

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