Personal Injury
Siobhan’s experience is concentrated in the following main areas:
Road traffic cases:
Typically where liability is in dispute and often where substantial damages are claimed. She has significant experience in the spectrum of RTA cases including pedestrians and cyclists claims. She is also fluent in the use of liability experts such as accident reconstruction experts. Siobhan has extensive experience of fraudulent RTA claims- please see the Insurance Fraud section of her CV for further detail.
Recent cases: collision between a lorry and driver of sports car on a country lane; a cyclist knocked off bike at traffic lights by HGV: road traffic claims raising contributory negligence issues such as partaking in a criminal enterprise (a teenage ‘joy-ride’) and knowledge of a driver’s consumption of alcohol and failure to wear a seatbelt. Also claims raising insurance issues, including indemnity, scope of liability of an RTA insurer.
Employers’ Liability cases:
Typically where liability is in dispute and often where substantial damages are claimed. She has significant experience in claims involving manual handling issues, work at height and alleged defective workstations.
Recent cases: included the successful defence of a cosmetics company sued by a make-up artist/sales assistant in relation to alleged back injury caused by the height of her workstation; the successful defence of a construction company against a claim by one its painters who alleged he was left carry and position large ladders on his own; an air steward allegedly suffering psychiatric injury through a failure to properly execute emergency procedures mid-air.
Public liability:
Regularly acts in tripping and slipping disputes in a variety of settings including highways, supermarkets, shops, car parks, hospitals and injuries at sports facilities (gyms, horse-riding lessons). She is very experienced in Highways Act claims, Occupier’s Liability and defective premises claims (boilers, stairwells, common parts) and also disease claims (please see Occupational Disease section).
Recent cases: includes the successful defence of a shopping centre in respect of an alleged dangerous low wall in a carpark. Siobhan has also acted for beauty salons in claims relating to alleged negligent spray-tanning and hair removal treatment and a case of laser skin care treatment, which allegedly resulted in a worsened dermatological condition. A recent case involved a claimant fell off his bike on an uneven cycle lane and onto a spiked wooden-post in adjoining grassy verge. This involved multiple defendants and complex liability boundary disputes between different borough councils and conservation areas.
Chronic pain:
Siobhan often advises in cases where an apparently minor accident has resulted in complaints of significant ongoing disability and potential issues of exaggeration or malingering arise.
Selected Cases
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Qualifications
- Harmsworth Entrance Exhibitioner, Middle Temple
- Diplock Scholar, Middle Temple
- CPE, City University
- BA, Oxford University
