MINING CASES: law firm denies claims made in North Durham MP's early day motion


Newcastle law firm Watson Burton has hit back at an early day motion in which 77 MPs have accused it of 'unscrupulous practices' in relation to payments made from coal miners' compensation.



The motion was laid by Kevan Jones, the Labour MP for North Durham. It alleged the firm 'colluded' with a claims-handling firm to deduct £325,000 from the compensation.



It said 'Watson Burton should have informed their clients that there was no need to deduct money from their compensation' and called on the firm to 'pay back those former miners and widows of former miners who have had their rightful compensation reduced as a result of these unscrupulous practices.'



Nick Delaney, Watson Burton's finance director, said the motion was 'inaccurate'. He emphasised that Watson Burton - which has handled around 22,000 coal health claims - has only received the fees it was entitled to under the government schemes, and had not deducted any money from miners for itself. The firm does not therefore have anything to pay back, he added.



Mr Delaney explained that the miners had signed legally enforceable agreements - which pre-dated the firm's involvement in their cases - to make the payment to the claims handler if their cases were successful.



He said Watson Burton had written to the clients for permission to make the deductions after their compensation was awarded, and likened the situation to a house seller entering into a contract with an estate agent prior to consulting a solicitor.



Describing himself as solicitors' 'greatest advocate', Mr Jones told the Gazette his main gripe was with claims handlers. 'Law firms should have advised [miners] that they didn't need to go through a claims handler,' he explained.



The motion came as eight Watson Burton partners were reprimanded by a Law Society adjudication panel. According to Mr Delaney, the reprimand was for not acting in their clients' best interests in that they should have advised on the deductions when the firm was instructed - even though, he said, by then it was too late.



A reprimand was the lowest sanction available to the panel and Mr Delaney pointed out that the fact there was no order to pay compensation implied 'that they didn't think the client had suffered any consequential loss'.



The partners were: senior partner Robert Langley, Gillian Hall, Allan Henderson, Kenneth Millband, Doreen Reveley, Ian Wanstall, John Williams, and former senior partner Andrew Hoyle (the last two have now left the practice for reasons unrelated to the reprimand).



Mr Delaney said the publicity surrounding the cases had been damaging to and frustrating for the firm.



Neil Rose