What is "compensation culture"

n. (context derogatory English) A culture (set of social customs) based on a sense of entitlement to legal compensation for one's own or others' mistakes.

"Compensation culture" is a pejorative term used to imply that, within a society, a significant number of claims for compensation for torts are unjustified, frivolous, or fraudulent, and that those who seek compensation should be criticised. It is used to describe a "where there's blame, there's a claim" culture of litigiousness in which compensation is routinely and improperly sought without being based on the application of legal principles such as duty of care, negligence, or causation. Ronald Walker QC defines it as "an ethos [which believes that] all misfortunes short of an Act of God are probably someone else's fault, and that the suffering should be relieved, or at any rate marked, by the receipt of a sum of money."

The notion of a compensation culture has also been conflated with health and safety legislation and excessively risk-averse decisions taken by corporate bodies in an apparent effort to avoid the threat of litigation.

The phrase was coined in an article by Bernard Levin in London's The Times newspaper dated 17 December 1993. The article, largely a polemic against the welfare state, carried the sub-heading: "We may laugh at ludicrous court cases in America, but the compensation culture began in Britain and is costing us dear."