Plan B Forum

A nurse who stumbled and twisted her ankle while visiting a terminally ill cancer patient sparked fury today when she said she was suing him for thousands of pounds in damages.

District nurse Penelope Snelson, 37, slipped and fell on a wooden wheelchair ramp at the home of 75-year old Mike Fountain and suffered ligament damage.

Mr Fountain, a retired research chemist, died only a week later from the multiple organ cancer which had plagued him for several years.

But lawyers acting on behalf of Mrs Snelson under a 'No Win No Fee' arrangement still sent a letter to the dead man saying the accident was 'his fault' and said he had allowed his £575,000 house in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, to become a 'danger to users.'

His grieving widow Christine, 76, burst into tears as she opened the letter addressed to her late husband from Aegis Legal which read: 'We consider this to be your fault by reason of negligence because you failed to take any reasonable care to see that the Claimant was reasonably safe in using your premises.'

It added that Mr Fountain had: 'caused or permitted your premises to become or to remain a danger and a trap to persons lawfully using the same.'

It said he had further 'failed to give the Claimant any or any adequate or effective warning of the dangerous nature of the makeshift ramp' and said he should 'should have known it was dangerous and unsafe.'

The lawyers claimed Mr Fountain 'failed to discharge the common duty of care' owed to Mrs Snelson and urged him to send through various health and safety documents including 'hazard warnings and notices' inspection records, safety checks, accident book entries and housekeeping records.

They said the grandfather should have erected a safety barrier around the six foot long ramp which lay on his front doorstep.

When his family contacted the lawyers to protest and said Mr Fountain had passed away, they said the legal action would continue.

Should Mrs Snelson win her case, her lawyers will get an automatic 'uplift' in legal fees netting them thousands of pounds in extra cash.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z18L6BYHcS

SisterMaryFellatio wrote:Yes...hes dead!

Doesn't this again come down to personal responsibility, or lack of it, and to the ludicrousness of claims for thousands for twisted ankles?

I'd send the woman's name to the local press, and out her.

Workers' compensation (colloquially known as workers' comp or workman's comp in North America and compo in Australia) is a form of insurance that provides compensation medical care for employees who are injured in the course of employment, in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her employer for the tort of negligence. The tradeoff between assured, limited coverage and lack of recourse outside the worker compensation system is known as "the compensation bargain." While plans differ between jurisdictions, provision can be made for weekly payments in place of wages (functioning in this case as a form of disability insurance), compensation for economic loss (past and future), reimbursement or payment of medical and like expenses (functioning in this case as a form of health insurance), and benefits payable to the dependants of workers killed during employment (functioning in this case as a form of life insurance). General damages for pain and suffering, and punitive damages for employer negligence, are generally not available in worker compensation plans.

Gob wrote:BSG, I agree with most of your post above, esp, the bit about "reasonable and in line with actual injury".

However the sort of ambulance chasers this woman has contracted are not really interested in that sort of claim are they?

Gob wrote:Doesn't this again come down to personal responsibility, or lack of it, and to the ludicrousness of claims for thousands for twisted ankles?

Gob wrote:BSG, I agree with most of your post above, esp, the bit about "reasonable and in line with actual injury".

However the sort of ambulance chasers this woman has contracted are not really interested in that sort of claim are they?