PIAB order to pay ignored by uninsured private members "Club"

I had an accident in a private members club approx 18 mths ago.

PIAB set the award and my "expensive" solicitors announced their fee. This was allover 3 mths ago now.

I finally got an answer from my solicitor today as to why it's all taking so long.

Seems the respondants aren't insured and won't pay up, even though the order to pay was issued by the PIAB at the beginning of July.

Steps now have to be taken to enforce the order! Sheriff etc

That aside the most shocking news I got was the information that Public Liabillity Insurance is "optional" according to my solicitor.

I was appalled to find this out, is it actually true ?

Re: Piab order to pay ignored by uninsured "Club"

PIAB order has same status as a court award. if you are uninsured, then the club officers and members are in trouble. If you are insured and you did not inform your insurers, then in all probability, they will refuse to indemnify due to delay in notification.

The club need to get immediate legal advice and more importantly, pull together rather than every member seeking independent advice, purely on grounds of economics.

Not sure if I was clear.

I am the one suing these "uninsured" people. I have no idea what their standpoint is other than my solicitor has informed me that they are uninsured and to date they have ignored all contact by my solicitor.

"The club need to get immediate legal advice and more importantly, pull together rather than every member seeking independent advice, purely on grounds of economics."

In my opinion these people whom, by the way own half the nightclubs in Dublin need to get Insurance.

My solicitor is talking sheriffs, installment payments and bankruptcy etc . Suffice to say that on a personal note I'm very put out as once the Piab set the award I have had it earmarked for specific purposes and now need to make alternative arrangements.

That said can anyone qualified to know can you tell me whether it is a legal, not to mention civic necessity on a nightclub's part to actually have public liability insurance. I'm confused as my solicitor said no

The only insurance that is compulsary in Ireland is Third Party motor insurance.Their is no legal requirement to carry Employers/Public Liability.
Your solicitor will have to issue proceedings against the club and its members.
The members have a joint and individual liability so if you know the names and addresses of the members you can sue the in their own individual capacity as well as in the name of the club.
It could take a long long tim to sort this out.

Exactly what I was dreading Ed054 it's probably going to take ages to sort this out. My solicitor has led me to hoping that when the sheriff arrives at the door, they'll be forced to pay but who knows what will happen after the enforcement order has been processed

If you know the name of any of the officers of the club get the solictor to track down their home addressess and get the sheriff to call to their home address.
That could help to resolve things.
Also find out when their licence is due for renewal and lodge an objection in the court for its renewal!

Determined

I very much doubt that this is a club as such. It sounds more like a private limited company which uses the word "club" just like most nightclubs are not actually clubs.

The insurance is now irrelevant. You have a claim against this company which they must pay. ( If they were insured, then the insurance company would deal with it promptly)

I don't like the sound of your solicitor, but maybe it's the way you are describing it. Are you sure that this is being handled properly?

Has the club/company accepted liability for the accident?
Is it a club or a company?
Most public clubs have claims made against them. Have they a history of this/

Brendan

A nightclub has to have public liability insurance because it cannot renew its annual dance licence without this. However, it happens that the insurance is not renewed at the right time or sometimes the insurance company goes bust and there is nobody there to pay.

I am suprised that this is only coming out now. When you submit a PIAB claim the insurance company get involved straight away presuming their insured informs them. It is them that decides whether the claim should be assesed by PIAB and they pay PIAB a fee for assessment.

Brendan you may indeed be right. The place in question is known as a private memvbers club. On the night in question I was with a friend who was a fully paid up yearly subscription member. I was there as a guest. It's a prominent "in Club" in the city and the two owners I believe own a lot of the nightscene establishments in Dublin.

Dazza you're right I am most definitely NOT happy with the way my solicitor is handling this. I had heard nothing from them for nearly 5 months and all calls I made to the office were met with gruff secretarys telling me "when we get the cheque so will you" !!!!!!
This is a very prominent solicitors on Stephens Green and their fees are 2k !!!!!!!

After a lot of effort I finally got to speak to solicitor on Friday to be told we now have to go for enforcement on the order to pay.....sheriff, bailiff etc

I just can't get my head round why this is all only coming to light now and feel tied to a bad solicitor

Determined said:

I just can't get my head round why this is all only coming to light now and feel tied to a bad solicitor

Click to expand...

Its called Procastnation. Solicitors in Ireland are well known for it. Hope it works out for you as I had also been in a simular postion as yourself, I had to take my file from my solicitor or i was going to be robbed of my house and home.

"Suffice to say that on a personal note I'm very put out as once the Piab set the award I have had it earmarked for specific purposes and now need to make alternative arrangements."

I think thats very funny!

Look, there is a big difference between (a) getting a judgment and (b) getting paid.

Just because you have an accident there is no fairy with a magic wand out there who is going to give you money so that you can "use it for a specific purpose"! You got your judgment /PIAB award, the Defendants appear to be uninsured, therefore the debt has to be pursued against the Defendants. If the Defendants are not insured, have no assets or are in financial difficulties, you may never recover any money.

mf

Mf1 I'm glad you find this situation funny. I was told by my solicitors when the Piab made the judgment back in May that the defendants had 4 weeks to accept or reject the judgment then a further 4 wks to pay up. I was never told that they were un-insured. This I believe should have been flagged up at an earlier stage than this. This is what I find hardest to understand !!!!!
The fact that I have the said sum "earmarked" is my affair and as I am due to close my house purchase in 2wks I had hoped to use it to part furnish. Laugh if you must but I expect no fairy wand only some basic efficiency and feel let down by my solicitor.

How tied am I to this solicitor legally at this stage ? I have signed a acceptance of thier fees which they were fast enough to send out. John Joe your case sounds as though it was a nightmare. How difficult was it to get your file and change ?

When did PIAB find out the defendant was not insured and so inform you or your solicitor?. They normally enquire as to defendants insurance company when claim notified to them.

Enforcing a judgement against an uninsured defendant can be difficult. Other creditors may have got there before you. Even in times of recession solicitors are not exactly queueing up looking for that type of work

There are procedures, but they are badly in need of modernisation. Solicitors have been asking for reform in this and other areas for many years. The Enforcement of Court Orders legislation ( instalment orders and committal orders etc) dates from 1927. Registration of Judgements as mortgages on property has to be done under legislation commencing in 1852.

The OP's solicitor is guilty of, at worst, bad communication. Many dissatisfied clients are in fact the victims of poor communications, and not necessarily bad legal service. Here's the thing:

1. If you are insured, your insurance company normally gets to deal with your claim and if necessary to nominate the solicitor who handles the claim.
2. The solicitor these days will usually have some correspondence with the insurer, and only if they cannot settle will the insurer let the matter out to their solicitor; so a lot of 'bar room' lawyers will probably tell you that your solicitor should have known from the outset that there was no insurer involved BUT
3. If you run a lot of nightclubs, your insurance is probably on the basis that you pay the first €10 - €30k of each claim yourself. That is the way a lot of nightclubs would operate, so as to keep down their insurance premium.
4. Where a nightclub operator has such insurance arrangements, it would not be unusual for the operator to retain a greater amount of control over claims management - so the involvement of the insurer would not necessarily be apparent (and if there is indeed no insurer, well so be it; though I rather suspect that the club has an insurer but that this case is below whatever threshold operates)

You have paid your solicitor to take the claim through PIAB, (which he\she has presumably done competently?). It appears that you now have what is, in effect, a debt collection case. The money you are owed is probably less than a night's takings (unles you were planning to buy a hell of a lot of furniture), so unless the Defendant is in financial bother I would not have any great worries about not getting paid. the important thing is that the nightclub operator is not rewarded for delay in payment. Once it is made clear that every last cent, and every cent of costs and interest, will be levied, the defendant should see sense.

In short, your solicitor should approach the debt collection like any other debt collection. If your solicitor does not want to do the debt collection work, then you are perfectly free to engage another. You should not expect the original €2k to cover this extra work - and if it does, your solicitor is being very soft on you.

Can I ask what the €2k covered? It seems very light if there were medical reports and perhaps an engineers inspection of the scene of the accident. Or did you pay for these separately? I consider myself cheap (for PIAB work), but my basic minimum fee for any PIAB claim is €1400 plus VAT plus outlay which - even with one medical report - would hit the €2k mark.

I agree. Assuming that the nightclub operator is not in financial difficulties, I would find it hard to believe that they would not pay. If there are additional costs to recovering the debt, then this can be levied against the nightclub operator.

Thanks again guys for your responses. Mob what you say makes a lot of sense. With regard to my claim being perhaps beneath the threshold of their insurance.
Yes my solicitor handled everything fine till now. I think my file may have been overlooked in the handover as the original solicitor within the firm who was handling my case went on maternity leave.
My biggest problem with them was the total lack of communication but they seem happy to take over this "debt collection" and he did mention how we can look for interest.
I initially thought that 2k was a lot but that was their fee inclusive of medical reports, there was however no engineers report done.

Again many thanks for all your input, in light of everything I now see that it should be a straightforward matter of debt collection (although straightforward it may not be)

Unfortunately, many solicitors (myself included, at least sometimes) view client updates as non-productive work. Faced with a shortage of time, the solicitor can spend that time bringing clients up to date on what is happening OR on actual paperwork - i.e. getting the client's file up to date. The file wins most times. This does not excuse the poor communication, but I hope it places it in a semi-excusable context. Getting simple things like this wrong is a source of hugely unnecessary stress for both solicitor and client.