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Compensation Culture Gone Too Far

The facility of being able to claim compensation is, in essence, a good thing. It means that people who have suffered hardship have some sort of recompense which is especially vital if time off work is needed or serious illness or injury has been inflicted.

Compensation claims can be made against an individual or a larger organisation such as a local health authority or council if they are felt to be negligent.

However, where this was once considered to be important for people to fall back on, but unfortunately events have turned full circle and the compensation craze has caused much harm. Insurance premiums have gone up and the cost of many things has been increased in order to cover the possible costs of compensation claims.

No longer are people able to take responsibility for their own lives and the things that happen and they are also incapable of being able to accept that accidents happen through nobody's fault.

One prime example is the man that tried to escape from jail by jumping from a roof thirty feet high. Quite unsurprisingly, he broke bones in both feet and was taken to hospital for treatment. He was subsequently released from prison and it seems his feet were ok enough for him to be able to do another robbery.

This led to another prison term and the delay in him getting further treatment for his feet yet he is being able to try and make a compensation claim against the prison service for the delay in his treatment! It seems incredulous that his claim has been allowed to get this far!

Another hot favourite compensation claim is that of the public suing councils for potholes in the road. This is definitely a problem as these holes can cause some real damage to cars that drive into them or people who trip and fall. However, it has got to the point where councils are now spending more on paying out compensation than they can on actually fixing these holes.

Councils have a limited amount of funds and legal costs have to come above other matters. In one year alone, councils paid out 53 pounds million on compensation claims and 52.3 pounds million on road repairs. Once all compensation claims have been settled, it leaves very little for the actual repairs. Of course, people who are genuinely hurt by something because the council have failed to fix it should be compensated but where does this merry go round stop?

Could some of these people have taken responsibility for where they were going? Could the council have made repairs as soon as the problem was notified to them?

So, where do lawyers draw the line? Well, I guess they won't because for every compensation claim there is a hefty old payment in it for them. The trouble is, this is having a detrimental effect on all of us now. Not only have prices been increased to cover the unforeseen compensation claims but we are being further restricted in what we can do.

When people had the sense to be aware of accidents and not seek to constantly blame others for things that go wrong, there was much more general freedom. Now, we are lucky if we can have Christmas lights put up in town just in case one should fall or fail in some way and somebody should become slightly injured but rich with it.

Seed Newsvine

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