When making a claim for compensation, there are 2 aspects which normally make up your compensation award. These are General Damages which is for your pain, suffering and loss of amenity, and Special Damages.

Special damages is any quantifiable expense that you have incurred because of the accident or injuries. The purpose is to address any economic loss and to give you back return your financial position to that which would have been had the injury not occurred.

Not many people keep receipts for every purchase (myself included) but without documented evidence, the Defendant or their representatives are unlikely to reimburse you for the loss.

What can you include as a Special Damage?
Read More

Any type of overtaking can always be hazardous. Anyone who proceeds to make an overtaking manoeuvre should do so with great care.

You may think it is easier for a motorcycle to overtake – However it can be more dangerous due to other road users and the fact that they simply cannot see a motorcycle or are not looking out for them properly. Drivers of all vehicles can fail to check their mirrors and surroundings properly before carrying out a manoeuvre.

Obviously as a motorcyclist you are more difficult to detect in any traffic – but other road users checking properly, and not just glancing, can avoid accidents. A common incident involving motorcyclists is that of a motorcyclist overtaking stationary traffic and a vehicle pulling out of the line of traffic to turn or to change lanes thus causing a collision.
Read More

A concertina collision simply means that there are more than just 2 vehicles involved in the accident, and one vehicle collides with another which then shunts another vehicle, which collides with another; and so on, like a domino effect.

The most common place for this type of accident to occur is in heavy traffic. Vehicles cannot move out of the way and therefore one collision at the back can cause several more down the line of traffic if the first vehicle to be hit is forced in to the one in front.

If an accident occurs on the motorway, taking into account the speed of vehicles, the accident can be severe with many vehicles involved. If you are unlucky enough to be in the middle of one of these accidents, who is to blame?

Well, the more vehicles involved the more complicated it can be to assess who is to blame for the accident. If you have been shunted from behind and into the rear of the vehicle in front, you are likely to be an innocent party. In this circumstance, if you are injured and pursuing a claim for your injuries, you will likely receive 100% of the compensation awarded to you.
Read More

If you buy a product in England / Wales, you should be covered by the Supply of Goods and Services Act that legislates that all products provided to a person must be as described, of an expected quality, fit for purpose, and should not cause you harm.

So, the huge question is – what happens if you are injured as a result of a poor product? If a product injures you due to it being defective or having some form of underlying issue, you may be covered under the act. You must prove though that the product is defective. If you are injured because a banana pops out of its skin whilst you’re peeling it, and unfortunately it hits you in the face, I’d say that’s not really a defect but an unfortunate turn of events…

However, if you buy a new toaster, you put your bread in as instructed, and it blows up, I’d say there was a potential issue. Or perhaps if you bought a new chair, sat down on it for the first time and it collapsed, there could be an underlying defect or it may not have been manufactured correctly.
Read More

Answering this question is similar to answering “how long is a piece of string?” Unfortunately, it is impossible to say exactly how long your claim will take as every claim is, of course, different. However, there are certain time frames that apply to a whiplash claim which I will discuss further in this blog.

Under the new Road Traffic Accident Protocol, defendants have 15 working days to respond to a claim with an admission or denial of liability. This means that they basically have to come back saying that they accept fault for the accident or don’t.  This new time frame speeds the process up from the old system where road traffic accidents would go through the personal injury protocol, comprising of a 21 day acknowledgement period and 3 further months for investigation.
Read More

If you are injured on a bus, you may be entitled to claim for compensation for any injuries and losses sustained– dependant on the circumstances.

First things first! If there was a collision, you should have a successful claim. Ultimately there is normally always someone at fault for a collision, whether it’s the bus driver or another road user, so you normally can make a claim with relative ease as there should be someone at fault.

The big question that may well be edging off your lips is – “what if there was no collision? Can I still make a claim?” This is where it can all boil down to why you have been injured.
Read More

If you have lost earnings due to an accident through no fault of our own, you can include a claim for loss of earnings as part of the compensation claim you’re making. The claim itself comes in to two parts commonly: General Damages and Special Damages. The latter is what lost earnings is covered under.

The general principle in law is that anything you have reasonably lost or reasonably paid out for as a result of an accident or injury is something you should be able to clam back for as part of a case. As long, the reason for the loss, is attributable to the accident or the injuries, and as long as it’s reasonable, there shouldn’t be any reason why we can’t claim it back.

What’s reasonable? Good question…

It’s common to send you to a medical expert as part of the claim, as they will produce a report that is used to help us value your claim on the injury side of things. The expert should also comment on the reasonableness of any time off work that has resulted in the lost earnings. As an example – if you’re staying off work because you can’t lift anything at work due to a bad back injury you are suffering from  and you work in a warehouse lifting heavy  boxes all day, I’d say that’s reasonable, and I’d like to think any right minded GP or medical expert would agree.
Read More

Please note that the information below may not apply to accidents that occur in Scotland. Therefore if you are looking for advice on child settlements in a Scottish claim please contact us direct.

When you have been involved in an accident, it can already be an upsetting time. However, when your children have also been involved this can make the scenario 10 times worse, especially if your child is injured. Fortunately, it is possible to pursue a claim on behalf of a minor (any persons under the age of 18) and therefore this may help make the situation appear clearer and go towards compensating for the distress involved.

So how does pursuing a whiplash claim for a child work? It is relatively simple. Primarily, the child will need what is called a litigation Friend to undertake the day to day running of the case. This is usually a parent or guardian, but can be anybody that is close to the child and most importantly acting in the child’s best interest.
Read More

We know that there is a lot of competition in the personal injury world – with each firm looking the same as the next, it can be hard to chose who to go with. However, when you dig beneath the surface, law firms can be VERY different from one another. Here at the Injury Lawyers we have strove to ensure that we stand out from the rest.

Unlike some companies out there, we are an actual law firm. We are not a claims company, advice helpline, or some sort of agent. We can give you legal advice right from your initial call and it is us that actually deal with your case if you instruct us to. The advice we give you from the beginning is therefore real legal advice regarding your potential claim. We do not pass your details around, so there are no middlemen taking cuts from your claim.

Unfortunately, many companies do involve themselves in this practice and this can affect how your claim is run. If the firm pays £1,000 (the going rate) to a middleman for your details, this takes away funds from the fees allocated to run your case and therefore it is very likely that they cannot provide the great service we do and cannot fight as hard for a higher payout. Essentially they’ve squandered a load of their budget on paying a middleman – the referral fees are not recoverable from the other side.
Read More

Commonly, we’re looking at two potential viewpoints on this one – you’re a pedestrian who is hit by a vehicle with a driver that is too cowardly to stick around and do the right thing to help you out; or you are in an accident due to a pedestrian causing you to have an accident.

If you are the pedestrian then there is still the chance to make a claim. Make sure that the matter is reported to the policy straight away and make sure you have medical attention straight away as well. By straight away I’d suggest within 24 – 48 hours. If the police track down whoever decided to leave you injured and unaided at the scene of the accident, we can pursue the claim against them. But if we never find them, there is another way.

The Motor Insurers Bureau was set up as a not for profit organisation with an agreement with the government to investigate and pay out for untraced or uninsured drivers. As long as the matter has been duly reported as I said above, they should be able to pay out for the claim. The level of compensation awards is the same as pursuing an insurer; the major difference is that it can take longer to settle a claim as its difficult to hold a not for profit organisation to any legal deadlines for responses. They work to considerable backlogs, but hey – be grateful there is a way of making a claim!
Read More