In the vast majority of compensation claims the compensation settlement is full & final! It is therefore important to make sure that all items of claim are in order when you are in a position to settle your claim. A final payment is once and for all, even if you continue to suffer longer then expected or, further injuries come to light after you have settled your claim.
It is therefore always our advice that you wait until after the date that you are expected to make a recovery to be sure that you have recovered!
The idea of compensation is to put the injured party back in the position that they would have been in had accident/injury had not have occurred, it is not the aim to punish the wrong doing, it is the idea to compensate the victim.
In the case of Heil V Rankin, it was held that when reviewing the level of compensation for pain and suffering in personal injury cases:
The compensation must remain fair, reasonable and just. Fair compensation for the injured person. The level must also not result in injustice to the defendant and it must not be out of accord with what society as a whole would perceive as being reasonable.
Obviously any physical injury cannot be calculated to the penny and compensated by money because its not like smashing your car, going to the garage and getting a price for the cost of repair, as there is no precise costs or value to say how much you will costs to repair!
It is therefore left for the court to decide the level of compensation your should receive for your injuries and the judge will take many things into consideration such as:
- How long you suffered / are likely to suffer for
- The extent of the injuries
- The affect on your lifestyle the injury has made
As you can imagine it is very difficult to put a specific value on an injury, and the courts have not set any tariffs to say how much specific injuries are worth however, they have published a collection of benchmark awards as a guideline to say roughly the bracket of compensation an injured party should look to receive in the ‘region of’. This means that although we cannot say exactly what our injuries will be worth to the penny; we can advise you of an approximate amount you should be looking to recover for your type of injury.
