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DWP is being sued by a Glasgow lawyer - The Canary 30th April 2018

Discussion in 'Work, Finances and Disability Insurance' started by Skycloud, May 1, 2018.

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  1. Skycloud

    Skycloud Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Article by Steve Topple in The Canary

    The DWP is in court again and it could open the floodgates for countless disabled people.


    Link for the rest:

    https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysi...the-floodgates-for-countless-disabled-people/





    Interesting and I hope Donaldson is succesful!
     
    Skycloud, May 1, 2018
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  2. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    [​IMG]
     
    Arnie Pye, May 1, 2018
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  3. Alvin

    Alvin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I doubt this is a slam dunk case.
     
    Alvin, May 1, 2018
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    Skycloud, alktipping, Invisible Woman and 1 other person like this.
  4. Joel

    Joel Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    hope he wins but hard to tell how strong his case is without knowing the details.
     
    Joel, May 1, 2018
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  5. Skycloud

    Skycloud Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    The DWP is a slippery beast and will have very good lawyers. They have lost before though. And the UN agrees with the claimant, who is a lawyer. let's hope he's got good legal contacts.
    It would be great if this was properly reported in the mainstream press.

    I bet if the DWP lose they will try and change the law in some way to minimise claims against them.
     
    Skycloud, May 1, 2018
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  6. alktipping

    alktipping Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    shame he did not ad a claim for damages regarding stress and aggravation of his condition . if one disabled person could succeed in such a case they really would have to change their ruthless assault on the chronically ill .
     
    alktipping, May 2, 2018
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  7. TiredSam

    TiredSam Moderator Staff Member

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    The amount claimed is peanuts. The DWP will offer to pay in full without an admission of liability before it ever comes to court, which would be a sort of precedent to encourage other claimants, but not a legal judgement on the issue. So it's unlikely to result in a legal precedent, but could encourage many more claims, which seems to be what the claimant here wants. Not all other claimants will be in his luxurious position though - a lawyer familiar with the procedure and able to do all the work himself for free or with legal friends who'll do it for him without charging.

    EDIT: The claimant might refuse such an offer without an admission of liability, and take it all the way to court, but then he'd be at risk of having to pay the DWP's legal costs from that point onwards, which could well amount to the price of his house. That's the way it used to work when I was in the game 25 years ago anyway (with the "payments into court" system), things might have changed since then.
     
    TiredSam, May 2, 2018
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  8. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    As I understand it, his claim is for the distress and extra costs to him of having suffered a wrong initial decision and then waiting nearly a year to get that decision overturned at an appeals tribunal. So he had nearly a year of no PIP and of the stress of preparing and waiting for the appeal.

    There are thousands of people every year who go through exactly that same denial, long wait, success at appeal process, including many of our members here.

    If he can get a precedent set that people in those circumstances should get £4000 compensation, that would blow the system up spectacularly.

    It would, I think, then be demonstrably cheaper to scrap the whole lengthy process consisting of - application by lengthy form filling - medical assessment by private company - decision maker - mandatory consideration - appeal tribunal - which must cost hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds per applicant.

    Instead they could pay people's doctors to assess their eligibility on the basis of the actual medical evidence.
     
    Trish, May 3, 2018
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  9. Inara

    Inara Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I hope you'll be right @Trish. I really do!

    Here, it is common practice of the authorities to "save" money by doing things that lead to a denial of benefits - things that are illegal by law. Your only option is to hand in an appeal - which leads to nothing because the authority won't change its mind, even if it knows it acts against the law, and it does know in most cases - and then go to court. Your only chance is a legal process. But most people won't go to court or even appeal.

    The next thing is that authorites "punish" you (i.e. denial of social help) if you act accordingly to your rights because they look upon this as "querolous" and, it seems, they then want to demonstrate their power; which is, very obviously, very anti-democratic, where we are told we have basic human rights and where it should be natural for authorities to do what they're supposed to do. It seems authorities nowadays are organized differently...Either you obey or you are denied benefits.

    In short, I fear people won't go to court more, but people in UK are not people in Germany. It would be good and important if people went to court and fought for their (basic) rights; very bad we have to do that!
     
    Inara, May 4, 2018
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  10. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    https://www.s4me.info/threads/work-...s-of-pip-and-esa-assessments.2344/#post-44545
     
    Sly Saint, May 4, 2018
    #10
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  11. Andy

    Andy Committee Member & Outreach

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    An overview of the story from the Disability News Service.
    https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...-breaking-legal-case-over-pip-discrimination/
     
    Andy, May 5, 2018
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  12. Inara

    Inara Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    In fact that is something I was wondering about: What can you do in the case an authority purposefully acts against the law? Now, it is very dificult to prove an intent, but in this case - of the lawyer - he claims they ignored certain evidence, which can be shown more easily. There is the question if this is enough for proving intent. (Common sense might say yes, but in law there exists no common sense most of the time.) Second, can you go against state authorities? (In UK obviously yes...)
    Interesting case.
     
    Inara, May 5, 2018
    #12
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