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COVID 19 Update – AIM help for Members

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This has been an extremely distressing and stressful time for us all and we are acutely aware of how severe the impact of this pandemic has been for all our Members.   We have been working hard to be able to assist you and to answer your requests for payment holidays while many of you have businesses which have closed and all have cashflow problems.

AIM wants to do all we can to assist our Members. 

Those who have paid their contribution in full as one payment are being contacted separately.

For those Members who make monthly payments, we are offering a 3 month holiday break from payments for the period 1st May to end July 2020.  During this period, we will not expect you to make the usual monthly payment, and will allow until 30th September 2020 for these payments to be paid.  Your cover will continue.  If however you have any claims during this period (liability or property), we will need to receive payment in full for any missed months before being able to handle any claim for you.  If you are unable to make the payments by the 30th September 2020, please contact us.  If payments cannot be made up then we may have to cancel your cover.  If you do not want to have the payment holiday, please let us know immediately, otherwise we will not take any monies for these three specified months.

Alternatively if you are not able to carry out any activities, and only have Public Liability cover, you may prefer to pause your cover for a 3 month period until 31st July 2020, or until you are able to resume activities if earlier or later.  During this period, we would not seek any contributions from you if you have requested a pause in your cover but there would not be any cover in place during this time.  You will need to advise us as soon as you are able to recommence activities so we can ensure you have the correct cover in place.

Property and Employers’ Liability covers continue and we recommend to Members that you keep these covers in place.  These contributions will still be due, but are included in the payment holiday as above.

Business Interruption

In addition we wish to reassure Members that we have been in correspondence with the Mutual’s backing insurers regarding the Business Interruption wording and whether or not cover will be afforded by the insurer.  Those discussions continue and whilst the current position remains that it is unlikely that cover will be available, we are reserving our position with them.  We will update Members with any developments, albeit this may take some time.

 

Another Liability Claim Successfully Defended

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Another liability claim successfully defended – but not without legal costs

This claim for damages arose from an accident which occurred during a coasteering activity on the Abereiddy Beach on the Pembrokeshire coast on 13 September 2008. The group members were invited to slide down a smooth two metre slab of rock, and it appeared that the claimant landed awkwardly and caught her foot on a projecting piece of rock at the foot of the slide, fracturing her right ankle in a shallow rock pool. Following a complaint by the injured party to the Licensing Authority on the appropriateness of the slide where she broke her ankle, the handling of the accident by the instructor and the after-incident care, an AALA complaint investigation inspection took place on 14th November. The report concluded that, whilst acknowledging that the 1-to-10 ratio had been exceeded (it was 1 to 12), the slab looked innocuous enough and the others in the group had completed the slide without incident, and that the immediate first aid and summoning of help was carried out adequately.

However, the claimant’s solicitors, MWR Solicitors of Preston, couldn’t wait for the AALA report and issued a letter of claim on 2nd December 2008 alleging that, inter alia, the provider exposed their client to a foreseeable risk of injury and failed to provide an experienced instructor. And they continued to press their case subsequent to the AALA report.

The wheels of justice turn slowly and in this case very slowly. Proceedings were issued in September 2011, four days before the three year limitation (or deadline date) and served in January 2012, seven days inside the further four month extension deadline and the case finally made it to the Southend County Court for the hearing on the 6th and 7th February 2014, before being adjourned to 23rd May for the judge to consider further written submissions.

Eventually, five years and two hundred and sixty nine days after the accident, the Circuit Judge ruled that the claimant’s injury was “a true and unavoidable accident for which the defendant should not be found liable”, a judgment pretty much consistent with the conclusions of the original AALA Complaint Report of some five and a half years earlier.

Although, subsequent to the ruling, AIM was entitled to recover its full legal costs from the losing claimant, as ever recovery didn’t turn out to be straightforward. So, following the “bird in the hand” principle, we accepted their offer of part payment to close the account, unfortunately leaving AIM some £22,500 out of pocket.

As a post script, following the Jackson reforms (see AIM Newsletter 2013), introduced last year to curb legal costs, we, as defendants, have forfeited our ability to recover any of our costs from the losing claimant’s side. In exchange for that, the claimant’s solicitors are no longer able to double their charges as “success” fees and bill us, and are no longer able to recover the cost of their ATE (after the event) insurance which covers their costs in the event that they lose.

 

Lessons Learned – Location, Location, Location

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Lessons Learned – Common Sense Prevails

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Common sense prevails in Court following a slip in a mining museum

Judge rejects claimant’s premise that because he slipped and sustained an injury on a visit to a heritage site, the site owner is to blame, and that it must have been due to “an act or omission by the defendant which it should reasonably have remedied”.

Clearwell Caves, a long standing member of the mutual, is a natural cave system which has been extensively mined for iron ore and operates now primarily as a mining museum, also providing caving activities. The caves are part of a Natural England designated Site of Special Scientific Interest.

This was a case brought by a retired publican who had slipped or stumbled and fallen whilst on a family visit to see the cave’s Christmas Fantasy Display. Although the claimant’s injury seemed slight at the time, it subsequently transpired that he had sustained a broken right ankle, from which he has made a more or less full recovery after 12 weeks in plaster.

The accident occurred in an underground passageway on a slight incline. Taking into account the damp conditions, the surface was covered by compacted ragstone gravel, recently replenished, providing a suitable non slip surface with drainage channels down each side. As is required by the Mines Inspectorate, there are recorded inspections of the mine’s walkways at least three times each day at no more than four hourly intervals.

The claimant’s expert, a Mr Petherick, argued that the mine, which is subject to Health and Safety at Mines Regulations 1993 and 1999, should also be subject to the Building Regulations and legislation covering buildings and constructed public places, such as sports stadiums and supermarkets.

The judge ruled that it was incorrect to equate a mine, with its inherent and unique character, with a supermarket or an office and that building regulations do not apply. He found that the ragstone gravel did indeed provide a suitable non-slip surface for the walkway in dry or wet conditions and that the mine’s recorded inspection and maintenance regime was systematic, regulations compliant and effective.

Comment

Common sense prevailed here in Court. Even in a case of little apparent merit, documented records evidencing risk assessment, good management and a regular inspection and maintenance regime are required to counter a claimant’s argument that because there’s an injury, the facility is to blame and compensation is due.