Legal Cost Specialists

New small claims limit

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on increasing the small claims limit for RTA personal injury claims to £5,000. The theory being that these claims should be straightforward enough for litigations to act in person without the need for legal assistance and, correspondingly, without the need to incur legal fees (win or lose).

The Court of Appeal has separately announced that general damages should increase by 10% to compensate claimants from being unable to recover success fees post-Jackson.

If the Ministry of Justice does increase the small claims limit for RTA claims to £5,000 it will cover the majority of personal injury claims in this country. Claimants will therefore recover a 10% uplift in damages despite, in theory, no longer needing the services of a lawyer (obviously a debatable proposition) and therefore not having to pay any success fee.

Will the Court of Appeal then reverse its decision for small claim RTAs?

This is but one of the numerous problems being caused by the piecemeal introduction of Jackson and the Ministry of Justice exploring ideas never proposed by Jackson.

8 thoughts on “New small claims limit”

  1. its ok, the insurers will be able to pay for it becuase this will cut fraud

    oh no wait, such claims will be allocated to the fast track / multi track

    wonder when this whole miserable system they are putting in place will collapse

    but its ok, all the litigant’s in person will have the 3 page advocacy for dummies that the courts have prepared in anticipation of the changes

  2. I think the biggest problem here is not the extra £500.00 windfall a Claimant might receive , but the thousands of jobs this proposed piece of legislation will kill off, across the entire legal profession.

    The bigger picture is unsurprisingly once again being missed by this insurernment!!

  3. If they raise the limit like this, and it captures 85%+ of claims, can someone kindly tell me what the point then is of the Portal, or all the time, money and expense presently being wasted on expanding it??
    Will lay-clients be expected to submit the claim in the first place onto the Portal themselves? Do they then get paid the Stage 1 fee themselves?
    And who precisely is going to quantify the claim for the Claimants, to determine (1) it is SCT, and (2) they get the correct amount of compensation? Insurers??? Dont make me laugh!!!! The influx of “pre-med” offers and client- capture by Insurers trying to buy-off claims is testimony to their attitude. The much vaunted “10% increase in damages” will be lost and buried completely, to again line the coffers of the Insurance companies who have taken over the asylum completely

  4. Most important – It takes months to get a hearing date at the moment (Even 30mins appointment)How the hell are the courts going to cope with the sudden burden of Litigants in Person trying to conduct their own cases. Can you imagine the grief this is going to cause the Judges and courts dealing with this amount of Litigants.LOnger hearings and paperwork returned due to errors in presenting the claim etc. Sorry but this is bound to fail before it even starts!!! Maybe it is really a masterplan to curtail access to justice and make the insurers millions of pounds by fewer claims and continued high car insurance (They wont be reduced trust me!). I wonder if any of the names at Lloyds of London are in the legal profession!!!! wait for the big payday boys/girls!!! You must think we are all thick! well done for cocking the entire legal system up! you watch!!!

  5. The way I see it, the Ministry of Jokes has noted the fact that 1000’s of claims have been brought by litigants in person for claims such as PPI etc. so they firmly believe that the litigants can also run a PI claim.

    I’ll be keeping a close eye on Martin Lewis’ moneysavingexpert.com site for the introduction of his “guide to PI” coming very soon.

    JH x

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