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Is Britain becoming a risk-averse society?

Hasan Suroor

The compensation culture in Britain has reached bizarre limits. Such is the fear of being sued that schools, hospitals and local authorities have become instinctively risk-averse.

IT IS not too often that British Prime Minister Tony Blair is applauded for anything he says or does. But his warning that Britain is in danger of becoming a "risk-averse" society because of a growing compensation culture has got people listening.

The arrival of American-style litigation on this side of the Atlantic is not just a British problem. It is also causing concern across Europe, where suing for damages has reached ludicrous proportions. A stage has reached where you can sue anyone for almost anything, and walk away with damages.

There was a bizarre case of a couple who met with an accident while driving home after a dinner where they had had a few drinks. Guess what they did! They sued their hosts on the ground that they should not have allowed them to drive after drinks!

The case provoked hilarity, and also genuine concern that if such claims were to be upheld even everyday social life could become embroiled in legal hassles. People might just stop hosting parties for fear of being hauled up in court the next morning, or in future invitations might carry a warning that risk-prone invitees need not attend.

Even in a more bizarre case last year, a driver sued the parents of a teenager who was struck by his taxi and killed. The driver claimed that he suffered trauma as a result of the accident which happened because of the teenager's negligence who had stepped on to the road suddenly. And the dead boy's parents were forced to reach a financial settlement with the driver. His lawyer said later the man had "every sympathy" for the teenager's family but that did not take away from his own "grief." "They have suffered a tragic loss. Their lives will never be the same again. The problem is that nor will his. This has caused unbelievable grief to a man (taxi driver) who did nothing wrong," the lawyer said.

The case was raised in the Commons by the local MP, who said it was "compensation culture gone mad" and had left the teenager's parents "devastated."

In another incident, a family sued a furniture-manufacturer after its new dining table collapsed under the weight of food dishes and wine bottles causing injuries to the lady of the house. The manufacturer retorted that the table was not built to stand the weight of a whole kitchenload of dishes and that the lady might as well have sued her husband for not removing her out of harm's way while he watched the table collapse!

The number of what Mr. Blair described as "outlandish" cases seems to be growing even though one research group has dismissed it as a "myth." The fact is that these days, you can even sue the weatherman for getting his forecast wrong if because of it you did not carry your raincoat, got soaked in the rain and caught a chill. By a convoluted logic of blame-game and, with a little help from the liberal compensation laws, you can blame your sickness on the "negligence" of the weatherman — and who knows you might even win damages.

Or, you can take your neighbour to court for leaving his garden hedge in a state that it left scratches on your gleaming new car while you were in the reverse gear. Conversely, the neighbour can sue you for moving your car into his hedge in a way that it was damaged.

The possibilities of suing are endless. Responding to a BBC survey on the compensation culture, one person wrote in mock-anger: "I am just about to sue the coffee industry. I spilled some when driving and it left a stain on my shirt. How dare they produce a stain-making coffee? Oh, yeah, it was hot too. They will pay for this!!!"

He was, of course, joking but one should not be surprised if someone seriously does something of this sort one of these days. It is already happening in America as another respondent to the survey pointed out. "I work for an American insurance company and some of the successful claims we see in America are astounding. A woman sued a shop, and won, because she fell over a child. The child was her own. I hope the U.K. doesn't go down this route of blame someone else, but I fear that we are beginning to go that way," said Kevin Miller from Cheshire.

Recently, a court dismissed a compensation claim by the family of a man who was killed in a car crash on an icy road. The family had sued the department of transport claiming that the 37-year-old man lost his life because it had failed to adequately grit the road which became slippery after snow.

Such is the fear of being sued that schools, hospitals and local authorities in Britain have become instinctively risk-averse. Ministers have expressed concern over the "crippling" effect it is having on public services as teachers refuse to supervise events involving even the remotest chance of an accident; doctors insist on prescribing what they themselves often believe are unnecessary diagnostic tests simply to cover their flanks in case something goes wrong; and public bodies find themselves struggling to take decisions in order to avoid risks.

`Knee-jerk reaction'

Mr. Blair cited the case of a local council removing its hanging baskets because of fears they could fall on someone's head leading to compensation claims. In a Scottish village, a seesaw was removed because under the European Union rules it was not considered safe. Schools have become reluctant to organise outdoor events for children after a bitter legal controversy over an accident during a sightseeing trip two years ago. Mr. Blair made a pointed reference to this saying that such "knee-jerk" reactions were the direct result of a looming "fear of litigation." He pointed out that just because one trip went wrong, the reaction should not be to deny children opportunities. "Irrational decisions should not be made through fear of litigation. Rather there should be commonsense culture, not a compensation culture," he said.

While most of the extreme claims are dismissed by courts, what is disturbing is that a climate now exists in which it is possible to bring such cases in the first place. Ambulance-chasing has become a thriving industry with cut-throat competition among compensation-management companies. Gone are the Dickensian hole-in-the-wall and hush-hush backstreet operations. Today's ambulance-chasers are savvy professionals, they work out of chrome-and-glass offices and spend millions on high-pitch advertising campaigns. Watch any commercial television channel and you will be lucky to escape a blitz of "no win, no fee" advertisements. And judging from the rising curve of claims litigation, it is clearly paying off.

Insurance premiums are shooting through the roof as compensation claims mount. According to the Association of British Insurers, public liability and employers' liability claims jumped from £2.3 billion in 2001 to £3.4 billion in 2003. A leading British insurance company has proposed a series of measures, including a ban on injury claims of less than £1000, in order to put a brake on what it called the country's "have-a-go" compensation culture.

The Government has threatened to crack down on practices that promote greed by making misleading claims to attract clients, and Stephen Byers, a senior Labour MP and former Cabinet Minister, has called for an end to the "blame, claim and gain culture" which, he says, has benefited only lawyers.

Addressing members of the Institute for Public Policy Research in London, Mr. Blair said the current approach to compensation was affecting policy-making not only in Government but also in the private sector, and the pressure to act to eliminate risk was "out of all proportion" to the potential damage itself.

"We cannot respond to every accident by trying to guarantee ever more tiny margins of safety. We cannot, in other words, eliminate risk. We have to live with it and manage it and sometimes we have to accept no one is to blame," Mr. Blair said. It is a concern shared by all political parties though the Conservatives, for all their avowed commitment to civil liberties, believe that the root of the problem lies with the European Human Rights Act's liberal interpretation of individual rights and have vowed to amend it if they come to power.

So, where does the debate go from here? The Government proposes to regulate compensation laws to tackle "rogue" claims but in the end is it really about laws? Or about a consumerist mindset where everything, including compensation for real or imagined hurt, is available in the supermarket?

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