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Spiralling or Stabilising? The Compensation Culture and Our Propensity to Claim Damages for Personal Injury
Author(s) -
Morris Annette
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the modern law review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1468-2230
pISSN - 0026-7961
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00642.x
Subject(s) - compensation (psychology) , tort , damages , interpretation (philosophy) , accident (philosophy) , personal injury , consciousness , law , law and economics , business , economics , actuarial science , political science , psychology , social psychology , liability , epistemology , computer science , philosophy , neuroscience , programming language
The propensity of accident victims in England and Wales to claim compensation through the tort system has generally increased since the 1970s. Contrary to popular belief, however, it has remained relatively stable since 2000, if not since 1997/1998. The upward trend in claims abated, therefore, when no‐win no‐fee advertising achieved prominence. Whether this long‐term increase in our propensity to claim supports the notion that a compensation culture has developed is largely a matter of interpretation. Our understanding of recent trends in our propensity to claim has clearly, however, been distorted through the media. This distorted legal consciousness may not only have affected our views of the tort system but may also have influenced our readiness to use it and thereby contributed to the stabilisation of accident claims in recent years.