Most of the largest compensation deals which are given in the US is from medical malpractice cases. In terms of the quantity of compensations which are given however, there are many more which come from negligence on the road and trips and slips. The point of compensation is twofold, the first side of it is to give some level of justice to the person who has suffered, and the second side of it is to hit the guilty party where it hurts. Those working in medical malpractice like Dr. Bruce G. Fagel comment that the reason why medical malpractice payments are so large, is because of the physical damage which is often caused to the patient, which can impact mental health and their ability to work.
Compensation very much has its place in the legal world yet so many believe this to be something of a dirty word. Here is why we need to change the conversation around compensation.
Causing Damage
The real issues began to happen around 20 years ago when so many victims of slips and trips were getting settlements for bringing claims, and doing so with relative ease. You perhaps would have seen those signs and ads out there, encouraging people who have had accidents to make claims and to get compensation. This created something of a claim culture however where more and more people were putting in claims for issues which weren’t exactly true. This eventually has caused a situation whereby people think that claiming for compensation is something that they shouldn’t do.
Understanding Compensation
It is important that you have a good understanding of what compensation is there for, as we mentioned in the introduction. This is about making sure that if you have been the victim of something, a genuine victim that is, that you will be given financial reward for the wages you may have lost or the emotional and physical distress that you have been through. In these kids of cases justice looks like a guilty verdict, a financial punishment and perhaps jail time in extreme situations. The court then goes one step further to ensure that any victims are also given some level of financial reward.
Holding Back
The main reason why we need to change the conversation around compensation is that it is holding many people back from speaking out about incidents which they have been involved in. The reason of course is that there is a stigma around the claim culture and people are worried about being accused of simply putting forward a spurious claim in order to earn money. This is only a very small percentage of people who actually do this, yet the stigma is such that people will actually had back from claiming for fear of being judged. The result is that people can be guilty of actions and never brought to account.
This is why it is essential that we begin to think differently about he word compensation.
