Self inflicted injuries

The vast majority of personal injury claims which are made involve claims where the defendant is insured, since the first rule of any prospective legal action is to only sue or threaten to sue a defendant that has the ability to pay a damages claim and costs. So, personal injury claims involving one individual against another are correspondingly quite rare.

It is also self evidently the case that injury claims can only succeed where there is a duty of care owed by an individual or organization to the victim and where there is negligence. Accidents caused by self inflicted action such as excessive drinking or such like would not make for likely successful injury claims. Nonetheless, research carried out by Firts4lawyers, a well known personal injury company, does make for some quite interesting reading, so here are the headline findings from that research :-

• Around 1 in 3 people surveyed acknowledged that they have injured themselves on a night out
• Some  70% of injuries were due to excess alcohol.
• The most common injury is due to a fall
• With men, nearly 20% of injuries are caused by fights, with women there is a higher proportion due to falling over, probably due to wearing high heels
• Other reported causes of injuries are broken glass and attempting to jump over barriers
• Most injuries occur in the age range of 18-34