Public liability claims

Public liability covers injuries caused by the failure of an occupier or another responsible party to take reasonable care: a fall on a wet floor with no warning, a trip on a broken footpath, an injury at a venue or a school, a dog attack, a defect in a rental property. The claim is against the insurer of the party responsible, and most businesses, landlords, councils and body corporates carry that insurance.

You need to show that a risk was foreseeable, that reasonable precautions were not taken, and that the failure caused your injury. Evidence gathered early matters more here than in any other claim type, because premises are repaired and footage is overwritten quickly: photographs of the hazard, the names of witnesses, any incident report and prompt medical attendance.

Every claim starts with notifying the insurer that a claim is being made. Which insurer depends on the type of claim: the compulsory third party insurer of the vehicle at fault, the workers compensation insurer of your employer, or the public liability insurer of the person or business responsible for the place where you were hurt.

The paperwork differs between states, and strict timeframes set by the regulator apply to lodgement, so the first job is to get the right form to the right insurer with the medical certificate that supports it. We lodge the claim for you and deal with the insurer from that point on.

There is no general legal obligation on public liability insurers to pay for your treatment costs or weekly earnings up front. The public liability insurer will only fund your treatment costs and loss of earnings when your matter resolves, by settlement or by judgment in your favour. Occasionally a claims manager will agree to fund something early, but that is entirely at their discretion and cannot be relied on. In the meantime treatment goes through Medicare, private health or your own pocket.

Attending treatment and following medical advice matters for two reasons: it gives you the best chance of recovering, and it builds the record of your injury and its effect on your life that everything later in the claim rests on. Keep every invoice and receipt for treatment, medication and travel to appointments paid out of pocket. Those amounts are included when your damages are calculated.

When your condition has stabilised, a medical examination assesses the permanent effect of the injury. The examiner is independent of your treating doctors and works to a standard set of guidelines.

We prepare you for the examination, and prepare the submissions to claim for the damages categories that you are entitled to.

The parties may meet to try to resolve the claim prior to filing the matter in court. However, once the matter is filed in court, the parties must meet to try to resolve the claim before a full hearing. The settlement conference is where the evidence gathered so far, medical, employment and financial, is put against the insurer and a figure is negotiated.

We prepare a detailed account of your losses beforehand, so that the number on the table is built from evidence rather than from the insurer's opening position. Most claims resolve at this stage or shortly after it. Our library covers what to expect at this stage.

If the settlement conference does not produce an acceptable offer, or we recommend that a pre filing settlement conference is not in your interest, we will obtain your instructions for proceedings to be filed in court. Filing does not end negotiation; many claims settle after proceedings start and before a hearing.

A full trial is the exception, reserved for claims where the insurer disputes liability or the extent of the injury and will not move. We tell you plainly, before proceedings are started, what a trial would involve, what it would cost and what we think the likely outcome would be, so that the decision to go on is yours and an informed one.