Medical evidence and the laws relating to compensation for injury / by R.J. Collie, M.D., J.P.

  • Collie, John, Sir, 1860-1935
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medical evidence and the laws relating to compensation for injury / by R.J. Collie, M.D., J.P. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/44 (page 4)
    of these men told me that the usual terms were, “No damages, no f but the lost fee could be tacked on to the next case !” The arran^ ment is a dishonest one, and is calculated to corrupt the litiga generally a working man. Twenty-six years ago I was asked by a solicitor to see a ch who had an injury of a trifling nature. My instructions were that the injuries were severe, the damages to follow would be large, a my fee would correspond. Here was a deliberate attempt to indi the medical witness to deceive himself to defeat the ends of justi and to be the instrument of unjustly abstracting money from t defendant. If the doctor succumbs, lie corrupts his patient a degrades himself. In 1908 I examined and reported on no less than seven hundi accidents. Four hundred of these were medico-legal cases, mosi threatened actions at common law. If you saw one hundredth pi of the moral degradation which actions for damages bring upon t working classes, you would not blame me for speaking strongly, do not blame the working man for his share in these compacts, any rate I blame him very little. He is often under-paid when work, he is too often out of work, his home circumstances are i what they should be, and we, his betters, are not altogether ir sponsible in the matter. He is often dull, and has frequently perverted mental outlook. Socialism run riot has dimmed his visi to everything but the hard and unlovely in his environment. . meets with an accident, frequently the result of his own carelessne He suffers pain. He is thrown out of work, and half wages, wh paid, means hunger to those he loves. Then comes the tempt The purchase of a ticket at the cost of a penny entitles him to f] legal advice ! I hear complaints of under-selling in our profess! but could anything be lower than this ? Delay to the man of li means letter writing, and letter writing means fees. What matter the client be starving at home ? We know a claimant of this type very likely, under these circumstances, consciously or unconscious to exaggerate. Several times working men have appealed to me ad misericordia saying in effect that whilst the lawyer fights they starve. M betide you if, while conducting a medico-legal examination, you ev suggest that the plaintiff* agree with his adversary by the wa Interference of this sort between a client and his solicitor will evoln protest from the man of law which, if you are a timid man, will ma you tremble. Not long ago I examined for the defence a working man who, his solicitor’s advice, had embarked on an action at law. He had h