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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.
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