Are there any reasons why you would not take on a dental claim?
In short, yes, lots of reasons!
There are numerous reasons as to why your claim might be rejected by me at the outset. When working under a CFA or no win no fee agreement, I have to be very careful before stepping in and running a claim, as once Court proceedings have been issued and served on the other party, you cannot simply walk away from a dental claim without any costs consequences.
I often find myself as a specialist dental negligence claim solicitor explaining some of the various reasons to potential clients below as to why I cannot help them:
Issues Tracing the Dentist
If your dentist who provided you with negligent treatment has left the dental practice and cannot be traced then you may have an issue. Any claim has to be brought against the individual dentist who treated you and not the practice that you attended. All dentists are self employed and any claim against the practice (rather than the person) will fail. It is a truly an awful feeling to tell a client that they have to discontinue their claim because we cannot trace the dentist who has usually left the country despite the fact that they may have a really strong claim worth many thousands of pounds. In some cases I have hired an enquiry agent or private detective to try and track the dentist down but this takes both time and money.
The Claim Is A “Small Claim”
If your injury is only slight or there is limited pain and suffering, then your claim might be allocated to the small claims court. This is not an issue in itself, but it does mean that no costs are payable from the losing party to the winner as is usually the case. This means that you will be liable for my costs even if you win your claim. You might get £300 awarded by the Court in damages but then have to pay my legal bill of £5000 which does not make any sense at all! This is the reason I do not take on any small claims – even if a client is willing to pay me privately for doing so.
Location of the Dental Treatment
In order for me to run a dental claim, your negligent treatment must have been performed by a dentist in either Wales or England. The law is completely different in both Scotland and Ireland, so I am unable to take claims from either of those two countries. It does not matter what nationality your dentist actually is – only that he or she worked on you in England or Wales. It does not matter whether your dental treatment was private or provided under the NHS as the standard of dental treatment should be the same.
Conflict Of Interest
I cannot take on your dental claim if I feel that there is a conflict of interest. This is where a situation might occur in which the aims of both you as the client and I as your solicitor are incompatible. In one dental case I felt that I could not take a clients claim on as the dentist involved was known personally to me and this might have jeopardised our friendship despite the fact that the client had a strong legal claim.
Limitation
This is by far and away the main reason as to why I refuse to take on very many dental claims. You only have three years from the date of any injury to bring a claim otherwise you will be statue barred from doing so. There is a “date of knowledge” argument that can sometimes be put forward in some cases. As a last resort, you can make an application under s33 of the Limitation Act to ask the Judge to be able to bring a claim out of time. There are of course strict reasons as to how you can do this and under what circumstances. It is quite an unusual step to make a s33 application but I have managed to be successfully argue this on occasions previously- but it is not a great start to a claim to have to ask the court for permission to bring the claim out of time. See more on my blog on limitation issues.
Other Solicitors Are Instructed
If you have signed up another firm of solicitors to help you with your claim, then I can only act for you under very strict circumstances and this usually means that I have to promise to pay the other firm all of their legal costs before they will release you to me. If you can prove that your other solicitors have discontinued your claim or are not instructed for some other reason, then I may be able to assist you with your dental claim.
The Claim Is Not Strong Enough
In some circumstances, there may be no breach of duty of care or a break in the chain of causation, both of which are reasons to discontinue a claim. See what is considered dental negligence for more details on this topic.
Do you believe you have been the victim of dental negligence? You may be entitled to claim compensation. Get in touch with Dental Law Claims today to book your FREE dental claim consultation.