Thompsons Solicitor

    I don’t know what’s more depressing – the thought that one day I’ll no longer be alive, or that 19 minutes have passed without a single comment on my incredibly hilarious Facebook update. Death. It’s the ...

  I am delighted that my colleagues here at Thompsons Solicitors are involved in supporting Will Aid.   Will Aid is an annual charitable Will-Writing scheme designed to remind people of the requirement to have a Will drawn up by a professi...

  The closure of two schools, one in Northern Ireland and the other in Wales, earlier this week due to the discovery of deadly asbestos unfortunately comes as little surprise.   As expert Scottish compensation Solicitors, Thompsons is well aw...

  I was shocked to hear of the latest tactic taken by insurance companies in dealing with claims for compensation by mesothelioma sufferers. The insurers argue that a claim is time-barred if a victim was originally diagnosed with pleural plaques, bu...

Good news from Transport Scotland - the number of people who were injured on the roads in Scotland fell to a record low in 2011. The new statistics reveal that road casualties are 4% lower than in 2010, and include an 11% drop in fatalities over the same ...

  I saw that yet another Scottish firm has been fined over the death of a worker.  Whiteinch Demolition Ltd who are based in Bishopbriggs pled guilty to Health and Safety breaches at Glasgow Sheriff Court after Bernard McCarroll died whilst dis...

  They’ve done it again!  My friends at Thompsons Solicitors won two awards on Thursday night at the Law Awards of Scotland- Employment Firm of the Year and Litigation Firm of the Year!  There must have been a few people feeling a...

  I was shocked to read this week that male executives in Scotland’s private sector are paid on average £10,000 more than their female colleagues.  The news reports also claimed that it would take another 75 years for women’s ...

  I was shocked to read in the news that companies are still breaching health and safety regulations and causing needless deaths.  I read that Vion Food was fined £100,000 after a worker was run over and killed by a forklift truck in West...

  I was shocked to read that health and safety failings led to an employee at Lowmac Alloys being crushed between two skips.  The company were rightly fined £80,000 by the Health and Safety Executive but this is an accident that, if all t...

  I saw such an inspirational story today in the papers about an Aberdeen woman, Lorna Harper, who said she feels like the Bionic Woman after doctors practically rebuilt her after a road traffic accident.  The series of operations she received ...

  I was sad to hear that 22 people had to be taken to hospital following a bus crash close to Glasgow airport.   Early in the morning on the A726 Barnesford Road close to Glasgow Airport the bus crashed into a perimeter fence and ended up pe...

  I saw recently that a van driver in Edinburgh ploughed into a woman’s parked car after he had a sneezing fit at the wheel.  Luckily the woman escaped the smash as she was in a café nearby but her car was completely written off by the ac...

  I read in the papers this morning that a woman saved her seven year old grandson from a dog attack when they were out on the beach in Essex.  My first thought was just how brave both the child and the grandmother had been to get through such ...

  No one expects to go through what Danielle Ormond went through a few years ago.  She was working in the Drumtochty Arms in Aberdeenshire when there was a gas explosion and she got buried under the rubble.  Luckily she managed to get out ...

  When you buy cleaning products in the supermarket you don’t expect to be injured by them but I saw recently that that’s exactly what happened to a Malaga housewife and she was recently awarded compensation for the injuries she received...

My friends at Thompsons have been out and about on their bikes to give a better service to cyclists who end up in accidents.  I love getting around on my bike and Mrs Thom and the kids do too but it can sometimes be really pretty dangerous.   ...

  Sheriff Principal Brian Lockart has now published his findings following a 141 day fatal accident inquiry into the fire at Rosepark care home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire. Sheriff Principal Lockart found that the fire safety plans at the care hom...

  Solicitor Stewart White is hoping to help put a smile on the face of third world kids, and honour his late mother’s memory, by running the Paris Marathon on Sunday April 11. Stewart is on course to raise £3,000 for the Smile Train,...

  As a law student working part-time in a major DIY shop, I see firsthand on almost every shift how easy it is to suffer an accident at work. Such accidents can come from practices such as bad forklift operation, climbing the shelving and racking, s...

  A trip to the gym left Robert Gordon University student Anthony McDavitt feeling anything but fit, after a car reversed out of a parking place and directly into his path. Mr McDavitt sustained a broken wrist, broken teeth, cuts and bruises whe...

  Last year I was following the story about the research into uncrashable cars.  My friends at Thompsons Solicitors  and I are always interested in ways to increase health and safety and ways of reducing road traffic accidents so I was ple...

  I was very happy to read recently that work to reduce road casualties has seen accident fatality rates fall to their lowest level since records began.  Recent statistics show that Scotland achieved the lowest road accident fatality rates sinc...

  I was very shocked to read that the number of work related deaths in Edinburgh and the Lothians has risen in the past year.  This has led to warnings to employers to take health and safety seriously. The figures that have been released fo...

  I read in the papers that a woman was saved from her car as it filled with water after skidding into a Moray canal.  Christine Rhodes, skidded her car on black ice, hit a verge and crashed down a steep embankment, landing upturned in the free...

  One of the things that I love about all of this snow that we have been having is that it allows all of the family to take a trip up north to go skiing.  The three of us love to drive up to Glenshee at the weekend and spend a day out on the sl...

  My friends at Thompsons have helped a lot of people claim compensation for injuries and losses they have sustained as a result of harmful and deadly bacteria. Thompsons Solicitors see first hand the pain, suffering and loss that harmful bacteria l...

  I was horrified this week to read in the news of an attack on a ten year old girl by a Japanese Akita dog causing her to suffer severe facial wounds requiring over 100 stitches.  The little girl was savagely attacked as she played in the gard...

  I was moved to tears this week watching footage of the 33 miners who had been trapped underground for 69 days being reunited with their loved ones, their liberty and their country. As someone who deals in health and safety law I was heartened to h...

Clydeside Action on Asbestos, pleural plaques victims and Frank Maguire, our Senior Partner at Thompsons Solicitors all welcomed the news that the bid by insurers to block the Scottish Parliament’s new law confirming the right to compensation of victims of pleural plaques has been blocked. Frank said: “This judgement states categorically that the Scottish Parliament was perfectly within its rights to pass this law and that is tremendous news for pleural plaques sufferers. We have an Act of the Scottish Parliament that establishes pleural plaques victims right to compensation and overturns the infamous House of Lords judgement to the contrary. Those responsible should now abide by the law. Thompsons have almost 1,000 pleural plaques cases which have been in limbo while the insurance industry pursued this ill-fated legal action and I now call on them to stop obstructing justice and not to try and put any more barriers in the way of victims seeking compensation. It was also noted that many insurance companies not involved in the court action, as well as the Ministry of Defence and British Shipbuilders, have been holding back on settling pleural plaques cases. They also should now meet their obligations and pay up. Frank went on to say “The Westminster Government should now enact similar legislation for the rest of the UK. It is ironic that pleural plaques sufferers in Gordon Brown’s constituency which includes Rosyth will now be able to claim compensation, but other MOD workers outside Scotland will not.” Suffers often have some form of breathlessness, but the biggest strain is the worry of developing a fatal condition like mesothelioma which happens with frightening regularity. Claimants mainly come from shipyard workers who had to cut asbestos boards – many stating that their employers kept them doing it long after they knew of the dangers telling them to use small blades rather than a buzz saws and to keep dust to a minimum. Out of 150 joiners who worked at the Caledonian joiners only 35 are still alive. The others all dying well before they were 65, most of them from mesothelioma or lung cancer.” This is a great day for the victims and their families.