Personal Injury Claims in the UK

Personal injury claims are a wide-ranging area of law. They can involve injuries to a person’s physical and mental health or loss of property due to someone else’s negligence or breach of duty. Legal experts have picked up on a number of interesting trends in this area of UK law.

General Damages

The first part of any personal injury claim is known as General Damages and covers the impact of the incident on your quality of life. This includes compensation for pain and suffering, which could include physical pain caused by an injury or psychological harm such as stress or depression.

The courts try to quantify these impacts on a case-by-case basis – and the severity of your injuries and how long they will last are also taken into account. The aim is to put you back into the position you would have been in had the accident or medical negligence not happened.

Unlike the US, the UK does not have depositions so the courts take the witness statements at face value without cross-examination. This means that the witness statement from a doctor, for example, is given to the solicitors as factual evidence and will be taken into consideration when calculating your General Damages.

Special Damages are compensation for the financial losses you’ve incurred as a result of the injury, and are designed to put you back in the financial position you would have been in had the accident not happened. This can include lost earnings if the injuries prevent you from returning to work, but it can also cover costs such as physiotherapy and care bills. This is why it’s important to have specialist solicitors dealing with your injury claim early on – they can ensure all the relevant expenses are included in your award.

Special Damages

If you’ve been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault then it is likely that you will need to spend money on things like medical care, travel expenses, and specialist equipment. These costs are known as special damages. They form a significant part of the overall compensation package in personal injury claims. It’s important to understand the different types of special damages so that you can get the maximum amount of compensation that you deserve.

For example, if your injuries prevent you from returning to work immediately or in the future then the losses associated with this will be included as part of your special damages award. This will include any earnings that you would have earned up until the point of settlement, as well as the loss of any potential opportunities. For those who are working in a public service such as police officers or fire-fighters, this could be quite a substantial sum.

If you have to pay for treatment that isn’t available on the NHS then this can also be claimed as part of your special damages award. This might include anything from taxi or bus fares to hospital visits to prescription charges and medication. Keeping receipts of any costs that you incur will help you with your claim as you can submit them to support your special damages claim.

No Deposits

As a general rule there is no need to deposit any money in order to make a personal injury claim. Personal injury solicitors will normally offer a no win no fee service or a conditional fee agreement (CFA). In these agreements, the lawyers’ fees are payable only if they successfully recover compensation for you. Some solicitors also charge a success fee on top of their normal costs – this is known as an After the Event (ATE) premium and can be expensive.

The person who caused the accident or, more commonly, their insurer is liable both to pay damages to the injured party and to repay benefitsnd and lump sum payments to the Department for Work and Pensions. They may deduct NHS charges from the gross compensation award as allowed by Section 8 of the 1997 Act and Regulations 10 and 11 of the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) (Lump Sum Payments) Regulations 2008.

After a settlement has been agreed with an insured person the compensator must submit form CRU18A to CRU GB or, for disease cases involving hospital treatment in Northern Ireland, to CRU NI. The information on the Certificate indicates which NHS treatments were received, whether or not they were with or without admission to hospital and the amount to be repaid. The Certificate must be completed by all compensators who are liable to repay.

No Witness Statements

There are a large number of personal injury claims made in the UK each year. Some of these involve road traffic accidents, which account for around half of all claims. Other claims are for injuries sustained whilst at work, including cases where people have been exposed to asbestos and suffer from mesothelioma or other recognised asbestos diseases. Clinical negligence claims, which involve the negligence of a medical professional, are also common.

In all of these different kinds of personal injury claims, evidence is vital. That’s why your solicitor will advise you on the kind of evidence that is required in each case – and will help you to gather it, including witness statements and expert reports.

A witness statement is a written factual account of what you saw, which includes the lead-up to and aftermath of an incident. In most cases you will write your own statement, although with your instruction, your solicitor can assist and/or write it for you.

Visit Website: https://united-solicitors.co.uk/personal-injury-2/no-win-no-fee-solicitors/

Witness statements are a primary source of evidence in a personal injury claim. They are particularly important when it comes to proving ‘general damages’, which is the amount paid for the pain and suffering that has been caused by an injury or illness. This is because a Judge at court will use this as the basis of his or her decision when it comes to calculating your compensation award.