5. What is an injury?
Even if someone admits they were at fault, you can only claim compensation if you have suffered an injury (or illness) because of their fault.
Injury means physical or psychological harm. The injury must be more than minimal & you must suffer actual symptoms. Your solicitor will need to get a medical report to confirm that you suffered an injury & to tell the court.
(a) What is the likely cause of the injury? &
(b) What is the extent of the injury?
6. What is fault?
You can only claim compensation if your injury was caused because of the fault of someone else. Someone is legally at fault (or liable) if they are negligent & or if they break a law or regulation (known as “breach of statutory duty”). Often the injured person (“the claimant”) will allege that the person at fault (the “Defendant”) was both negligent & in breach of statutory.
7. What is negligence?
Negligence is usually defined as behavior or conduct that is blameworthy because it falls short of what a reasonable person would do to protect another person from a foreseeable risk of harm. If an injured person proves that another person acted negligently & or in breach of statutory duty to cause his injury, he can recover financial compensation (or damages) for his harm.
Sometimes a person can be injured by an accident that was not the fault of anyone & there is no claim to be made.
8. What is financial compensation?
Financial compensation is money. Sometimes compensation is called “damages” & the amount of damages is call “quantum”. These are legal terms that you may hear.
(i) General damages
This is the lump sum payable to compensate the claimant for their pain, suffering & loss of amenity. The amount payable is dependent on the seriousness of the harm & the extent of the symptoms or disability. The general principle is, the more serious the injury the higher the award of general damages. Judges & solicitors refer to guidelines called “the judicial studies board guidelines” which are published annually & which classify awards for the most common injuries in a sliding scale of severity. To more precisely pin down the likely award of general damages, judges & solicitors also refer to actual decided cases (known as case authorities or comparable authorities).
(ii) Special damages
This refers to past & future financial losses that can be proved to be a consequence of the injury. The most common special damages claimed are lost earrings, cost of lost or damaged items, cost of medical treatment & drugs.
9. What is the process for making a claim?
Why instruct a solicitor direct?
It is important to know that claims management companies do not allowed to & are not qualified to deal with court proceedings & as such can’t represent you if your case progresses to court. As soon as you instruct a claims management company, they will normally sell your claim to a firm of solicitors.
Claims management companies are therefore little more than the middle men, advertising for your claim before selling your details on to a firm of solicitors, often based on which firm is prepared to pay for the details rather than any analysis of who is the best firm to deal with the claim.
We advise you to cut out the middle man & deal direct with the solicitors who fight your case.
