Need to know

• In personal injury claims you must prove the harm flows directly from the incident.

• If there’s a gap or new cause between the accident and the injury, compensation can vanish fast.

• Insurers know causation inside out and so must high street PI solicitors.

Welcome to TSL’s Weekly Edge, whether you’re aiming for a regional or high-street practice, or just want to get a feel for how law works in the real world beyond textbooks, you’re in the right place. 

No corporate jargon, no massive deals, just real useful information designed to give you that extra edge in your legal journey.

🧠Wilson’s Weekly Wisdom

A few weeks ago, I made a mistake at work.

I’d typed an offer incorrectly, and if it hadn’t been for the opposing solicitor also making an error when accepting, it could have cost my firm £680. Not exactly a career-ending sum, but enough to make my stomach drop.

I owned up straight away, and it got resolved without any financial fallout. But I walked away with a few lessons:

1. Double check everything. Typos love to hide.
   

2. Tell your supervisor the second you realise you’ve messed up. Waiting doesn’t make it disappear.
   

3. Everyone makes mistakes. My supervisor even shared that when he was a trainee, he once missed a Defence deadline. 

The truth is, mistakes happen, we're all human. What matters is that you handle them with honesty, humility, and speed. The best solicitors aren’t the ones who never slip up, but the ones who know how to fix things when they do.

💡Spotlight Article

A man lost his leg in a workplace accident, but a court says he couldn’t claim for it. Why?

Because, legally speaking, it wasn’t the employer’s fault anymore.

Welcome to workplace injury law in 2025, where the line between “tragic accident” and “tough luck” is buried somewhere in a few paragraphs of legal jargon about causation, and where a workplace accident does not automatically mean a pay out!

🔎What’s happening? 

In Haley v Newcold Ltd [2025] EWCC 57, a worker was crushed by a forklift years ago. Horrific.

Then later, he ends up losing his leg. Naturally, he thinks, “Surely that’s part of the same thing?” But no, the court essentially said, “Sorry, sir, that’s a separate issue.” They decided the leg loss wasn’t directly linked enough to the original injury, so the “chain of causation” snapped.

Translation: no pay out for the amputation, even though the accident started it all!

That’s the thing about personal injury law; it’s not just about proving someone messed up, it’s also about proving that the harm kept flowing straight from that mess-up. If there’s any gap, any other cause, any delay that muddies the line, you’re done. No comp. Just like that!

Meanwhile, the smaller stuff? Still pays out.

You twist your knee at work, mess up your ankle, and the Judicial College Guidelines say you could be looking at anything from £6k to £30k, depending on how bad it is. Not life-changing, but still worth having.

So yes, the cruel irony is clear: “run-of-the-mill” injuries tend to result in a pay out, while the truly awful, life-altering ones can get legally shifted out of the system.

❓ Why it matters to high street firms

In personal injury law, more serious injuries don’t always mean big pay outs.

Mr Haley lost his leg, but the money didn’t follow. You might think it brutal, but that’s the game. Causation rules everything. Miss that, and you’re finished!

So it does bode well to realise that:

• Causation is king, and courts don’t mess about: One shaky link in the chain, one medical twist, one gap in the story, and your five-figure claim turns into a polite “thanks for letting us know, but no.” For firms handling major injury cases, that’s the line between pulling off a hero win and burning hours on a dead file.

• Evidence early, or it’s gone: Accident books, photos, witness statements, GP notes. Get them down now. If it’s not written or snapped, it never happened. Judges love paper trails, and insurers will shred you if there’s a gap.

• Cash is a real crunch point: Catastrophic injury cases burn money. Orthopaedic experts, vascular reports, and long medical timelines all add up. If the causation chain breaks, it’s the firm footing the bill, not the insurer. That’s why being commercially switched-on isn’t just a nice-to-have trait. It’s survival.

• Insurers smell weakness: They know causation law inside out. They’ll pick at every complication, every delay in treatment, every “what if” in a medical record. Spot the traps early, or they’ll take you apart!

In cutting through the noise?

This isn’t just a story about a leg and a forklift. 

It’s about how PI law works, not who’s hurt, but how it happened, when, and what connects the dots. Miss the link, and all you’re left with is paperwork, heartbreak, and a client whose life changed forever, but with nothing to show for it!

Chain of Causation

Think of it as the golden thread that ties what the Defendant did wrong to what happened to the Claimant.

In Haley’s case, the first part’s clear: the forklift crushed him because the employer dropped the ball. But fast-forward a few years, and he ends up needing an amputation.

The court took one look and basically said, “Sorry, that’s too far down the line.”

Chain broken. It’s game over.

No link, no liability, no compensation.

In short: Every injury has got to trace straight back to the original mistake!