Does corrective justice provide a useful tool with which to analyse the UK’s accident compensation system?
Introduction:
In spite of the recent interest in corrective justice, there is no universal agreement as to its meaning.
The term accident will not be constricted to its strict legal definition (in that it would only be accidental if unforeseeable or foreseeable but unpreventable)
The UK’s accident compensation system is made up three sub-systems:
1. First party insurance
2. Tort liability and ‘third-party’ insurance
3. Social Security
(Atiyah, 2013: 11)
In order for corrective justice to provide a useful tool to analyse the UK compensation system it will have to prove to be accurate in at least two of these sub-systems.
Compensation …show more content…
This means that crude arguments based on the fact that the injurer ‘doesn’t pay’ are of no concern. We will consider
‘Third-Party’:
It is misleading to think of tort law as the primary vehicle for ensuring payment of compensation to accident victims,
Even when liability insurance is seen as ancillary to tort, it has a dominant effect on who sues and who is sued (Stapleton, 1995 :825),
If liability insurance is seen as an ancillary device to tort in the UK’s accident compensation system then it would do very little to undermine corrective justice’s value as a tool in analysing the wider accident compensation system. Insurance in this scenario If it were not for insurance there would be little hope of restoring the claimant to the pre-accident position in a serious injury case. It is doubtful whether we would even wish to attempt to place full responsibility for the damage on most defendants. The very nature of the tort system would have to change. Without insurance, it is probable that tort liability itself could not survive.40
Introduction:
In spite of the recent interest in corrective justice, there is no universal agreement as to its meaning.
The term accident will not be constricted to its strict legal definition (in that it would only be accidental if unforeseeable or foreseeable but unpreventable)
The UK’s accident compensation system is made up three sub-systems:
1. First party insurance
2. Tort liability and ‘third-party’ insurance
3. Social Security
(Atiyah, 2013: 11)
In order for corrective justice to provide a useful tool to analyse the UK compensation system it will have to prove to be accurate in at least two of these sub-systems.
Compensation …show more content…
This means that crude arguments based on the fact that the injurer ‘doesn’t pay’ are of no concern. We will consider
‘Third-Party’:
It is misleading to think of tort law as the primary vehicle for ensuring payment of compensation to accident victims,
Even when liability insurance is seen as ancillary to tort, it has a dominant effect on who sues and who is sued (Stapleton, 1995 :825),
If liability insurance is seen as an ancillary device to tort in the UK’s accident compensation system then it would do very little to undermine corrective justice’s value as a tool in analysing the wider accident compensation system. Insurance in this scenario If it were not for insurance there would be little hope of restoring the claimant to the pre-accident position in a serious injury case. It is doubtful whether we would even wish to attempt to place full responsibility for the damage on most defendants. The very nature of the tort system would have to change. Without insurance, it is probable that tort liability itself could not survive.40