Claiming Damages
Advice
If you do decide to claim negligence, you do so by suing for damages. This would entitle you to compensation for activities you can no longer do, medical expenses and lost wages. Damages aim to put you in the same position you would have been in if the tort had not been committed. There is a duty on you to mitigate losses, meaning that you must take all reasonable steps to keep the losses you are claiming to a minimum. For example, if you unreasonably refuse medical treatment, you cannot recover damages for the harm that the treatment would have avoided. The court awards damages in the form of a single lump sum to cover current and future losses, but you cannot go back for a second claim if your injury gets worse.
Important - The time limit for bringing a claim is three years.
There will be costs in making a claim, thus you must weigh up whether it is worth taking action, this seems harsh but it is no use spending money on legal help / medical reports and court fees to be awarded compensation if the other side could never really afford to pay it. If the injury was caused in their workplace, then they must legally have insurance to cover such claims.
We suggest you check your existing insurance providers (car, home etc.) to see if they cover your legal costs in bringing such a claim.
There is nothing stopping the other side from informing you that they will defend the claim using well paid experts, and mentioning that they would seek reimbursement of costs from you if you lose (let’s call this information, not intimidation). In any case we would expect such a robust defence. They will look at your social media posts (many a claim has been thrown out because the claimant has posted images showing them doing something that the claimed injury would have prevented).
Because of the financial level of any potential claim we strongly suggest that you present the best case you can, effectively you have a “one-shot” at getting it right.
Should you commission Lestons to work for you we will do our very best to present the base case you could have, we would need to obtain medical reports to support your case. External costs that we incur, such as medical expert’s, court fees etc. (known as disbursements) are charged to you at cost.
What you can claim for (all costs must be “reasonable”): -
- Private healthcare such as nursing care and help with housework;
- Provision of adaptations / equipment;
- Taxi fares (if unable to drive); and
- Childcare costs (if unable to care for the child) and so on
Ignored income: -
You may have already received some financial assistance; the following are types of assistance that are not included in the claim calculation: -
- Insurance payments;
- Benefits from the DWP;
- Ill-health pensions; or
- Charitable payments (including ex gratia payments made by your employer).
How we can help
If appointed to act we would ask a suitable expert to evaluate the injury to create a report to obtain your damages. Our first action would be to get you medically assessed by one of our excellent medical consultants to ascertain the extent of the injuries. Please note that these medical costs (disbursements) are outside our control and therefore may exceed our standard charge. Rest assured we would not incur any charges without your consent, please note we make no commission from these referrals but do need clients to open a case so that we can prepare a brief for them.
To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by taking advantage of our free consultation service, activated by the link at the top of the page, should you wish to start a case the caseworker will send you the suitable payment link.
Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal and medical team and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.