In order to make a successful personal injury claim there are three elements that must be present; some form of negligence, a personal injury, and evidence of both the accident and the injury.  

Negligence 

The first part of any personal injury claim is negligence.  In other words, somebody else has to be at fault or to blame for your accident.  If you have tripped over your own shoelaces, or have fallen over because you have had too much to drink, it is very unlikely that you would be able to make a personal injury claim, regardless of how bad your injuries are.

Personal Injury

To make a personal injury claim, naturally, you must have suffered a personal injury.  Depending on the type of accident you have had, this could include whiplash, bruising, broken bones, ligament damage, post traumatic stress syndrome, lacerations, damaged teeth or even death.  If you have had an accident which has not resulted in any personal injury, you will not be able to make a personal injury claim.  You can not claim for a ‘near miss’ or for what ‘could of happened’.

Evidence

To make a successful personal injury compensation claim it is essential that you can prove not only that you have suffered a personal injury, but also that your injuries were caused by the negligence of a third party.  This is why evidence is very important for a successful personal injury claim.

The type of evidence you may have will depend on the type of accident you have had, but may include medical reports, witness statements, photographs, accident books, etc. 

For further information on making a no win no fee personal injury claim, please click on the links below:

• Road Traffic Accident Claims
• Whiplash Claims
• Work Accident Claims
• Claims for Slips, Trips and Falls
• Medical Negligence Claims
• Dental Negligence Claims
• Criminal Injury Compensation Claim
• Dog Attack Claims

Most personal injury solicitors throughout the UK can now deal with personal injury compensation claims on a ‘no win, no fee‘ basis.  No win, no fee agreements are also known as conditional fee agreements.  No win no fee means that if you do not win your personal injury claim, you do not have to pay your solicitors fee.

No win no fee claimshave become increasingly common over the past few years since the Government restricted public access to Legal Aid for the majority of accident claims. With a no win no fee claim your potential compensation claim will initially be assessed by a solicitor. During the initial assessment the personal injury solicitor will make an assessment as to the likelihood of the claim being successful.

If the personal injury solicitor thinks your claim is unlikely to be successful, they will not be prepared to take the claim on a no win no fee basis. This is because with a no win no fee claim the solicitor only gets paid if the accident claim is successful. If the solicitor takes the claim on a no win no fee basis and fails to win, as the name suggests they do not receive a fee.

If a no win no fee claim is successful the solicitors fees, along with a bonus or success fee, is paid by the losing party. Other costs incurred such as court fees and medical report costs are known as disbursements and can also normally be recovered from the losing party.

For further information on making a no win no fee personal injury claim, please click on the links below:

• Road Traffic Accident Claims
• Whiplash Claims
• Work Accident Claims
• Claims for Slips, Trips and Falls
• Medical Negligence Claims
• Dental Negligence Claims
• Criminal Injury Compensation Claim
• Dog Attack Claims

General Damages

General damages is the name given for compensation awarded for the actual pain and suffering of the injury caused by the accident. General damages are calculated according to compensation amounts that have been awarded by the courts for similar accidents and injuries.

Special Damages

Special damages is the name given to compensation that is awarded for financial losses suffered as a direct result of the accident. The most common financial loss is due to loss of earnings whilst a person is unable to work due to the injuries caused by the accident. This amount can also include future loss of earnings if the injury is ongoing. 

Below are some examples of compensation amounts that could be awarded for a variety of different injury types. These compensation amounts are only provided as a rough guide, as the amount of compensation awarded will depend on the severity of the injury. 

Head or brain injury:  £8,500 - £100,000+
Face, jaw or cheek injury:  £1,000 - £50,000+
Arm or shoulder injury:  £1,500 - £60,000+
Hand injury:  £1,500 - £60,000+
Knee injury:  £1,500 - £60,000+
Leg injury:  £1,500 - £60,000+
Psychiatric injury:  £1,000 - £75,000+
Deafness or impaired hearing:  £6,500 - £80,000+
Whiplash or neck injury:  £1,500 - £70,000+
Back or spinal injury:  £1,500 - £100,000+
Hip or pelvic injury:  £3,500 - £80,000+
Foot, ankle or toe injury:  £3,500 - £60,000+
Vibration White Finger:  £1,500 - £25,000+
Asbestos related disease:  £5,000 - £100,000+

If you have been involved in an accident which was not your fault, and have suffered a personal injury as a result of the accident, contact a personal injury solicitor who will be able to assess your accident claim and may also be able to give you a rough idea as to the compensation amount you could be entitled to.

Whether you are the driver, a passenger, on a motorcycle, a cyclist or a pedestrian that has been involved in a road traffic accident, if the accident was not your fault, you may be able to make a compensation claim for any personal injuries that you have suffered as a result of the accident.

All motor vehicles are required by law to have insurance to protect against any accidents that occur.  Therefore if you are involved in a road traffic accident, the first thing you should do is exchange insurance details with the other party, as your claim for personal injury will be made against the insurance company. 

With some road traffic accidents there may not be an insurance company to claim against.  For example, if you are involved in a road traffic accident involving an uninsured driver, or are involved in an accident where the other driver has driven off (i.e. a hit and run accident).   In these circumstances you may still be able to make a personal injury claim to the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB). 

What to do if you are involved in a road traffic accident
As with all personal injury claims, in order to make a successful compensation claim following a road traffic accident, you would first need to prove that another person was at fault for the accident which has caused your personal injury.

To help prove that another person was responsible for your road traffic accident, and your subsequent personal injuries, it is a good idea to try to make a note of the names, addresses and telephone numbers of any witnesses to the accident.  It can also benefit your personal injury claim if you are able to take some photographs of the scene of the accident, such as the location of the cars, any skidmarks on the road, etc.

If anybody involved in the accident has been seriously injured or if the third party driver leaves the scene, has no valid insurance, or appears to be driving under the influence of alcohol or any other substance, you should contact the Police immediately to report the accident.

For further information on making a personal injury compensation claim following a road traffic accident, click on the  links below.

• Car Driver Accident Compensation Claim
• Passenger Compensation Claims
• Motorcycle Accident Compensation Claim  
• Pedestrian Accident Compensation Claim
• Bus Accident Compensation Claim
• Whiplash Compensation Claim

If you are involved in an accident at work which causes a personal injury, or if you have contracted an industrial illness through the job that you do, you may be entitled to make a personal injury compensation claim.

All employers have a legal responsibility to provide employees with a safe and secure workplace.  This responsibility includes providing adequate equipment and materials, providing competent co-workers, providing a safe system of work and providing proper training and supervision. 

As accidents at work are common, your employer must have insurance to cover any compensation claims that are made against them by employees who are injured at work.  This is known as Employers Liability Insurance. 

Accidents at work caused by unsafe work premises

Your employer has a responsibility to ensure that the place, or places, where you work are safe.  Therefore if you are injured at work due to a slip on a wet floor, a trip on a raised floor tile, or a fall down some damaged steps, you may be entitled to make a personal injury compensation claim against your employer. 

Accidents at work caused by unsuitable equipment or materials

If you are involved in an accident at work which is caused by unsuitable equipment or materials, you may be entitled to make a compensation claim for any personal injuries that you suffer.  Even if your accident is caused by faulty equipment, materials or machinery supplied by another company, the responsibility for ensuring that they are safe for you to use and that you are adequately trained to use them will usually remain with your employer. 

Accidents at work caused by unsafe system of work or lack of proper training

Your employer has a responsibility to take reasonable steps to ensure that you are able to carry out your work duties in a safe way in order to avoid any inherent dangers.  For example, if your work involves a lot of heavy lifting, your employer should provide training so you are aware of the correct way to lift items in a way which minimises the risk of injuries.

Accidents at work caused by incompetent staff

Your employer must ensure, to the best of their ability, that the people they employ are competent in their jobs and do not put other people in the workplace at risk by their actions.   Therefore if you are injured at work due to something a fellow employee did, or did not do, your employer is potentially liable for those actions. 

Below are some common questions relating to accidents at work. 

How long do I have to make a work accident claim?

A work accident claim must be made within three years from the actual date of the accident. If at the time of the accident you are under the age of 18, the three year period would not start until the date you turn 18 years old. If your work related injury only became apparent at a later date after the accident, the three year period would begin on the date you became aware of the injury, rather than the date of the work accident.

If I make a compensation claim for an accident at work, who pays the compensation?

It is a legal requirement for your employer to have insurance cover, known as Employers Liability Insurance, to cover them in case of any work related accidents.  If your no win no fee personal injury claim for an injury you have sustained at work is successful, it is the company’s insurers who pay the compensation awarded, not your employer.

Can I get the sack for making a work accident claim?

An employer cannot legally dismiss an employee for making a compensation claim for an accident at work. Therefore if your employer did dismiss you on these grounds, it could be classed as unfair dismissal, which could entitle you to make a separate compensation claim through employment law.

Every occupier of land or buildings, whether a shop, office, home, farm or factory, has a duty of care to take reasonable care for the safety of visitors.

There are many different situations where people may suffer a personal injury as a result of a slip or trip.  Slips are very common in public places, such as shops and restaurants where a person may have walked on a wet surface, oil or other slippery materials on the floor.  Slips are also common over the winter months as a result of ice and snow.

The most common causes of slip and trip accidents are spillages which leave the floor indoors slippery or badly maintained paths, which cause raised sections of ground. Trips and slips also frequently happen within the workplace when walkways are obstructed or carpets are not fitted properly.

Examples of personal injury claims for slips and trips 

If you slip on a puddle of water inside a building which is open to the public, such as a shop, a supermarket, a bank or a restaurant and have suffered an injury as a result, the personal injury compensation claim would be made against the occupier’s public liability insurance policy.

If your accident was on a council owned property such as a public footpath or a council house rented out to a member of the public, then you may be able to make a personal injury compensation claim against the local authority if the accident was due to their negligence. For example, you may be able to make a personal injury compensation claim if you tripped and injured yourself on a badly maintained footpath; however, you would not be able to make a personal injury compensation claim against the council if you tripped on an item left lying around within a council owned property by the tenant unless you could show that the council itself was in some way at fault. You could of course claim against the tenant but this is unlikely to be worthwhile unless the tenant has relevant insurance cover. Likewise if such an accident occurred on public property during the course of your employment you may have a claim against your employer depending on the circumstances.

• If your accident was on private property such as a house or piece of land privately owned by an individual, you would be able to make a personal injury compensation claim providing the accident was the fault of the land owner or occupier and they had suitable insurance in force.

• If you tripped on a cable trailing along the floor in your office at work and injured yourself, you would be able to make a personal injury compensation claim against your employer.

For further information about making a no win no fee personal injury compensation claim for slips, trips and falls, please click on the links below:

• Pavement Trip Compensation Claims
• Supermarket Accident Compensation Claim
• Claims for Slips and Trips at Work

Going to the dentist can be a nervous and scary experience for many people. Although most dental treatment is performed to a high standard with beneficial results, sometimes things can and do go wrong. If you have suffered a personal injury as a result of dental negligence within the past three years, you may be eligible to make a no win no fee dental negligence compensation claim.

Your dentist owes you a duty of care to provide the correct treatment required, and to perform this treatment in the correct manner. If your dentist breaches this duty of care whilst providing dental treatment, and this results in some form of personal injury, you may be entitled to make a compensation claim for dental negligence.

There are three main types of dental negligence:

• Dental negligence caused by misdiagnosis
• Dental negligence through inadequate treatment
• Dental negligence caused by careless dental work

A dental negligence claimthrough misdiagnosis is when a dentist either fails to diagnose a condition or misdiagnoses a condition, which subsequently results in a failure to provide a patient with the correct treatment for his or her actual dental condition. In order to make a successful dental negligence compensation claim for a misdiagnosis, the misdiagnosis must result in a personal injury. For example, has the failure to provide the correct treatment made the condition worse, or would the patient have recovered from the condition quicker, had the condition been correctly diagnosed.

If you have been provided with inadequate treatment which has caused a personal injury, which could and should have been avoided, you may be eligible to make a compensation claim for dental negligence. Inadequate treatment could occur on a single occasion, or in some cases over a long period of time. To be eligible to make a dental negligence claim under such grounds, it must be shown that the same treatment would not have been provided by a reasonable and competent member of the dental professional.

Dental negligence claims made due to careless dental work can include a wide range of different situations. For example, due to careless work a dentist could cut your lip during treatment or extract the wrong tooth. If you feel you have been injured due to the careless work of your dentist or dental nurse, you may be entitled to make a claim for dental negligence compensation.

As with any type of personal injury compensation claim, if you feel you may have been the victim of dental negligence, contact a personal injury solicitor who will be able to discuss your potential claim for dental negligence. Many personal injury solicitors will be able to take your dental negligence claim on a no win no fee basis, and some solicitors also specialise in the area of dental negligence claims.

Most people have to put their trust in medical professionals at one time or another for some form of medical treatment.  Whilst this treatment is usually beneficial and performed to a very high standard, mistakes do happen, which can result in unexpected pain and suffering.

All medical treatment carries some risk, which patients should usually be warned about before the treatment is carried out.  Therefore not all of the unexpected or disappointing outcomes to medical treatment are the fault of the healthcare professionals.

However, if you have suffered All treatment carries some risk and patients are warned of serious risks. Still, English law awards compensation for things going wrong if it can be proved that the treatment was negligent – meaning the standard of care fell below the standard generally accepted to be reasonable for that area of medicine.

Although it is possible to make a criminal injury compensation claim against the actual person that attacked you, in most cases an attack claim is made through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority is a government funded scheme which was set up to provide compensation to people who suffer physical and psychological injuries as a result of violent crimes.

To make a criminal injury claim through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, the attack must have happened in either England, Wales or Scotland. It is important that the police are notified about the attack as soon as possible, and that you co-operate fully with the police investigation. Compensation for criminal injuries may be reduced or withheld if you have behaved inappropriately before or during the incident, such as by taunting the attacker. 

Unlike most personal injury compensation claims which have a three year deadline within which to make the claim, a criminal injury claim made through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority must be made within 2 years from the date of the attack. If you were the victim of an attack over two years ago, you may still be able to make a criminal injury compensation claim if there are special circumstances for the delay in making the claim. This is down to the discretion of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, and a late application is only likely to be accepted if it is judged reasonable and in the interests of justice to do so.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority can award compensation amounts between £1000 to £500,000. This means the injuries you have sustained through an attack must be judged serious enough to be valued at £1000 or more. Therefore if you have only suffered a very minor injury which has completely recovered within a few weeks, it is unlikely you would be able to make a criminal injury compensation claim through the CICA.

There is a common misconception that criminal injury compensation can only be awarded if a person has actually been convicted. However this is not the case. You may still be eligible for criminal injury compensation if the attacker has not been convicted, and even if the attacker has never been traced. As long as you have co-operated fully with the police investigation into the attack, you should still be eligible to make a compensation claim. 

If you have been the victim of a violent crime within the past two years and have suffered injuries as a result, you may be entitled to make a criminal injury compensation claim. Contact the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) or a personal injury solicitor for more information.

Your employer has a duty of care to ensure you have a safe environment in which to work. Legislation is in place to protect employees against slips and trips at work, including The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and The Work at Height Regulations 2005.

Whether you work in an office, a factory, a school, a restaurant or a shop, if you have had an accident due to a slip or a trip at work, and the accident was not your fault, you should contact a personal injury solicitor as you may be eligible to make a no win no fee work accident compensation claim.

Examples of slip and trip accidents at work

Below are some examples of potential scenarios at work which could enable you to make a no win no fee compensation claim. Each claim is judged on its own merits, so if you have been involved in a slip or trip at work, you should contact a personal injury solicitor to discuss your potential claim.

Slip on a wet floor - Matthew works as a waiter at a restaurant. When walking into the kitchen to collect an order, Matthew slipped on a wet floor. One of the chef’s had spilt some water on the floor and had failed to get the spillage cleaned up and failed to put down a warning sign. The slip at work was witnessed by two of his colleagues and the accident was recorded in the accident book at work. Matthew broke his ankle in the accident and was unable to work for 8 weeks.

Trip on loose wires at work - Kerry works in a warehouse and when walking through the warehouse she tripped on loose wires which had been left trailing across the walkway. There were no warning signs and there were no covers securing the wires to the ground. Kerry hit her face on a piece of machinery and knocked her front two teeth out. Kerry required extensive dental treatment and suffered pain for a number of weeks. Following the accident her employer took steps to make sure the wires were properly covered to ensure they were no longer a trip hazard.

Slip on ice at work - On her way into work, Julie slipped on ice outside the main reception. The accident happened in January during a particularly cold week. Her employer did not put down any salt or grit to try to prevent employee’s slipping on the ice, and two other people had slipped on ice during that week. Julie went to her GP and suffered from a whiplash injury to the neck for several months which required physiotherapy.