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To quote (roughly, I think) from the Saw films, the human body is a miraculous creation, and can take a great deal of punishment.  If you’ve seen the films, you’ll know what I mean…

But Hollywood aside, the news that an injury you have sustained is going to leave you with a permanent problem can be devastating to hear. For reasons unknown, certain injuries just don’t heal very well, or at all. The obvious ones like amputation or the loss of an organ or similar can obviously leave you with a permanent disadvantage. But there are other things, like permanent muscular weakness or nerve damage that equally leave you with long term and potentially indefinite problems.

Commonly, bone on bone heals well, but for reasons unknown, a ruptured ligament or damaged nerve either needs reconstructing or has little or no chance of recovering. So how do we take this in to account when it comes to valuing a claim for personal injury compensation that leaves you permanently injured? How can we put a value on something that changes your life for the worse forever? It’s not easy; but as specialist injury lawyers, we do it all the time.
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Occupier’s liability means that the occupiers of a premises are required to keep people safe whilst they are on the premises for which the occupier is responsible. Occupiers liability applies to lawful visitors and to trespassers although, rightly so, lawful visitors are given greater protection than unlawful trespassers.

The term occupier is quite wide and the Courts look at the degree of control over the premises. Occupier’s liability applies where people become injured in the supermarket, in shops, in garages, in petrol station forecourts etc. If for example you slip on oil in a petrol station forecourt then you may be entitled to claim compensation. This is because the occupier has failed in their duty to keep the premises reasonably safe and to protect people from injury. Presumably you are on the petrol station forecourt to fill up your car with petrol; clearly you are therefore a lawful visitor to the premises. Each case is viewed on its merits and the Court would look at whether anything was done to warn of the danger. In addition the Court would consider how long the oil had been left on the floor, were staff aware that oil was on the floor etc?
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If you’re a sports fan, you’re probably aware of the dreaded cruciate knee injury. The cruciate ligaments are useful for knee stability on impact – so running or jumping is where they come in to play the most. Sadly the knee joint can be fairly easy to injure, particularly in sports. Tearing or rupturing a ligament in the knee can be severely debilitating. As the title of this article suggests, I’ll focus on ruptured ligaments.

A ligament rupture by definition is where the ligament is literally torn in to two (or I suppose more) pieces. Tearing usually means the ligaments remains intact but part of the tissue is torn or ripped. Ruptured usually means it’s been split. If the ligament tears off a piece of bone with it, this commonly known as an avulsion fracture and can usually be repaired with the bone being sewn back on. You’re better off with that than a rupture – I’ll explain why.
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In personal injury claims, you can claim General Damages which is money or compensation for the injury that you sustained. Further to this, you can also claim for Special Damages which covers any expenses or losses that you have incurred as a result of the accident.
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Put simply; it might be. But what you need to know is that are for more likely to under settle your claim for compensation if you settle with the insurers direct. Now, before you start telling me that the insurers have already told you they’ll pay you more by dealing with them direct as they avoid paying out legal fees, don’t bother! We know how the system works, and dealing with the third party insurers directly is very, very dangerous. I’ll explain why.

How to Value a Claim

There is only one way to properly value a claim for personal injury compensation. You must attend a medical appointment with a suitably qualified medico-legal expert. Your own GP does not count! The expert needs to be qualified to prepare a specific medico-legal report.

In most cases when people deal with insurers directly, they do not obtain a medico-legal report. Therefore, any valuations and offers made to you are based entirely on estimations and guesswork. Would you buy a new car based on what it ‘roughly’ might be worth? How do you know you’re not paying over the odds? Would you hand over your hard earned cash to a mechanic when you don’t know how much they will charge you for the work? Better yet, would you let a surgeon operate on you when he/she may or may not be qualified to do so? You can’t leave this stuff to chance.
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Claiming for compensation is not as complicated as it may seem. However, the thought of taking “legal action” for some people, is something they simply do not want to spend time doing as they’ll worry that it will take too long and involve attending court and all sorts of hassle..

So the purpose of this blog, is to simply put people’s minds at ease, and to ensure you that if you are thinking you’re entitled to compensation, then you should genuinely look in to making a claim!

So what is the procedure?

There are two mains protocols involved for the common compensation claims; the first is the Road Traffic Accident Protocol and the second being the Personal Injury protocol.
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Many people up and down the UK work in offices and many underestimate how easy it is to be injured in an office environment.

By far the most common injuries faced by those working in offices are slips, trips and manual handling injuries; in fact according to Health and Safety Executive statistics for the year 2011/2012 up to 2,000,000 working days were lost to these injuries (source). While not all of these will have been in offices it is easy to see how they might occur in your office workspace.

Trailing wires from printers or computers, a bag or a coat that hasn’t been hung up or put away under a desk, amongst many other things in an office could all be tripping hazards. At the same time corridors between offices and communal areas that have tiled floors that collect water and liquids create a real risk of slipping hazards.
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Pre-action protocols were introduced for a number of reasons. The main reason was to speed up the claims process by providing guidelines as to when insurers should respond to a claim. Most personal injury claims come under a certain protocol, all of which differ slightly.

Road traffic accidents now come under the road traffic accident protocol, industrial disease claims (e.g. industrial deafness, vibration whiter finger etc) come under the disease and illness protocol and most other personal injury claims (e.g. work accidents, trips/slips etc) come under the more general personal injury protocol. Note that road traffic accidents differ slightly in the sense that a claim can “fall out” of the road traffic accident protocol. This is because road traffic accident claims are submitted through an online portal and should insurers fail to respond to the claim in time (within 15 business days) then the claim falls out of the road traffic accident protocol and continues under the more general personal injury protocol. This means that different time frames are then in operation. This also has cost consequences as Solicitors are only entitled to recover fixed costs for claims dealt with on the online portal under the road traffic accident protocol.
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Whiplash claims are oh so common; and the question as to how much compensation you are allowed to recover for a whiplash claim is all over the internet. We have done a fair few articles on this topic in the past, but the reason I wanted to write about this today is because I have a whiplash claim and I’ve just received my very first offer! Very exciting…
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Pre-medical offers are what they say on the tin! – Offers made before medical evidence has been gathered and reviewed. In most cases such offers should be treated with caution and should only be considered if you have the advice of a personal injury specialist as the majority of the time you may run the risk of under-settling your claim.

Compensation is based on the severity of your injuries and how long these will affect your everyday life. Therefore, it is a main and pinnacle part of any claim to gather accurate medical evidence using a medico-legal report from a proper expert. This expert has a duty to the Court which ensures that they are an impartial party in the claim. In the report compiled by this expert there are often key bits of information that affect the value of your claim, which include:

1. A prognosis period – which predicts how long your injury will affect you.
2. Any treatment you may require.
3. Effects on your ability to work.
4. Effects on the your daily routine and daily living.

Based on all the above and of course any consequential losses you have occurred, a valuation of your claim will be established and consequently any offers of settlement will be based on such evidence.
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