mr. E.S. Engelhard

Title of research: A Comparative Study on Improvement Initiatives to the Personal Injury Claims Process in Different Jurisdictions. A Search for Success Factors

Promotor: Prof. mr. S.D. Lindenbergh

The value of comparative legal research has long been recognized by academics: it can aid legislators in producing new laws, but also in solving problems in a legal system by scrutinizing (superior) solutions introduced by other countries, as a response to the occurrence of similar issues. The potential of comparative legal research has, however, not been fully utilized (yet) in every nation. The extrajudicial personal injury claims process in adversarial legal systems such as the Netherlands, for example, has a multi-issue character. Problems concerning this process include the  quality and education of professionals dealing with these claims, the psychological burden the process entails for victims - often resulting in secondary victimization - and its protracted duration. Although several countries have experienced similar issues and addressed them by introducing several solutions, few comparative studies have been conducted on the improvement of the personal injury claims process. This research therefore aims to identify 'succes factors' in handling personal injury claims, by investigating the existing problems and by scrutinizing the solutions introduced to address these problems in different jurisdictions. The countries included in the comparative study are the Netherlands, England, Ireland and the United States.

Evelien (1990) studied law at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) and Lund University (LU). She holds a LLM degree in both private law and criminal law. In September 2014 she started her PhD research on improvement initiatives to the personal injury claims process in different jurisdictions. She is also involved in a European research on the processes by which claims for damages in respects of personal injuries are resolved in practice, funded by ECTIL: ‘A Socio-Legal Analysis of Personal Injury Claims in Three Countries’. Furthermore, she is a member of the research programme BACT’s (Behavioural Approaches to Contract and Tort) support team.