Introduction

There are a lot of misconceptions about what you can and can't claim for when you have suffered an injury in an accident, and just how much you should expect to receive in compensation for such an accident. We will try and cover the basics here, so you will know what your solicitor is talking about. For example, it can be cases arising from car accidents. The amount of compensation can vary from case to case, but there are certain factors that influence to the compensation amount.

Analyzing the issue

The issues regarding the compensation most of the times arise from tortious liability.

Articles 282, 283 and 284 of the Federal Law No. 5 on Civil Transactions of 1985 represent the basic statutory provisions relating to tortuous liability.

If we refer to the Official Commentary of the above articles, which states as follow:

"Any act which causes damage to another person either directly or indirectly entails obligating the doer to pay compensation. The damage shall be regarded as a direct if there is direct connection between the act and the damage."

According to UAE Laws a person is entitled to be compensated for all the losses that he/she has suffered as a result of the accident, which may include damage to clothing and property, loss of earnings and moral sufferings.

It is always questioned the amount of compensation to claim the Court. Of course, the answers to this question can vary depending on many factors. For example:

  • Income of the victim and the amount he/she spent on supporting his family;
  • How old he/she was on the time of accident;
  • The limit of harm inflicted to aggrieved person;
  • The moral sufferings he/she faced;
  • The amount he/she spent to the medical surveys and etc.

In the view of the above mentioned factors the Judge will make his decision, although as we have stated, the amount may vary.

Responsibility

Although the liable parties for the accident can be evident, it is not as easy as it seems to be. The liability of an offender has to be proven by legal measures. Moreover, tortious liability requires a combination of three elements i.e. a fault, damage and a causation link. In other words is the fault or mistake made by the offender in relation to the amount of harm inflicted to the injured, in addition, has to have straight forward correlation between them. On the other hand, proving the existence of both a fault and damage is often held to entail a presumption of a causation link which may be rebutted by proving a foreign cause.

A question which quite often arose in claims for compensation based on acts which are also a subject matter of previous criminal proceedings is the extent to which the findings of the criminal court are binding on the Civil Court entertaining the claim. The position which seems to have been uniformly held is that a criminal judgment is binding on a Civil Court in the appropriate situations to the extent to which the Criminal Court has determined the facts as a necessary for the disposal of the Criminal Case. In cassation petition 163 of 1999 e.g. it was held that:

"The binding effect of a criminal judgment is restricted to matters the determination of which was vital for supporting the judgment, such as the fault of the accused and the causation link between the fault and the damage".

When claiming for road accident injuries it is important to have received medical attention so that the pain and suffering you received from the road traffic accident is sufficiently documented and therefore provable.

Sometimes it happens that respondent doesn't have any money to compensate the claimant. Nevertheless, it is possible to claim against the insurance company of offender if there is any.

Conclusion

Overall, everyone has a right to compensation if he/she got injures in the accident. Sometimes the liability of the offender is evident, but you have to go through court proceedings in order to claim compensation. The question of the amount of compensation is very important, because one can't claim unlimited amount of money. The compensation always has to be reasonable and depends on aforementioned factors.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.