Compensation for car crash victims

p90fool · October 2023

Hi all. As some of you may know, my stepson and his girlfriend were passengers in a car accident a few weeks ago and were quite badly injured, lots of broken bones and some internal injuries which needed operating on.

He's at home with us now and she was discharged from hospital but has had to go back in today due to complications.

We're pretty sure they'll both make a full recovery given time but obviously there will be issues with loss of earnings etc, and the fact that they're now homeless because the idiot driver was their housemate and they'll be witnesses in a criminal prosecution against him.

Long story short, we have no idea where to start regarding legal advice, Google just throws up no win/no fee ambulance chasers and we'd just like to talk to someone independent with no vested interest.

Any ideas where to start? We're a bit stumped tbh, thanks!

RaymondLin · October 2023

There are lots of firms who specialises these kind of things, be be prepared for a LONG process, there will be witness statements, there will be medical reports, there will be appointments with medical experts, you will have to disclose all your medical records, earnings records so they can set a base of any prior medical history and also prove your earnings, and potential earnings. The whole thing will take a couple of years.

Firms...depends where you are, in the midlands there is Irwin Mitchell who is a big one, Taylor Rose, Harrison Clark, Thursfields, Shakespeare. I know people who worked in these firms.

In terms of cost, it will be "no win no fee", I put that in quote as that's not what's its called, rather a conditional agreement, but it's the essence of it.

(it's been a long time since I was in this world...)

Wazmeister · October 2023

Maybe start with the drivers insurance of the car they were injured in.

Offset · October 2023

Wazmeister said:

Maybe start with the drivers insurance of the car they were injured in.

I hope the bugger was insured...

fretmeister · October 2023

Wazmeister said:

Maybe start with the drivers insurance of the car they were injured in.

No. Never.

fretmeister · October 2023

RaymondLin said:

There are lots of firms who specialises these kind of things, be be prepared for a LONG process, there will be witness statements, there will be medical reports, there will be appointments with medical experts, you will have to disclose all your medical records, earnings records so they can set a base of any prior medical history and also prove your earnings, and potential earnings. The whole thing will take a couple of years.

Firms...depends where you are, in the midlands there is Irwin Mitchen who is a big one, Taylor Rose, Harrison Clark, Thursfields, Shakespeare. I know people who worked in these firms.

In terms of cost, it will be "no win no fee", I put that in quote as that's not what's its called, rather a conditional agreement, but it's the essence of it.

(it's been a long time since I was in this world...)

Did you notice the new costs rules that came into force today?

fretmeister · October 2023

Offset said:

Wazmeister said:

Maybe start with the drivers insurance of the car they were injured in.

I hope the bugger was insured...

If he isn’t then the Motor Insurers Bureau will step in to be a pseudo insurance company.

HAL9000 · October 2023

Hi @p90fool - can’t help with the legal stuff but best wishes for a speedy recovery for your stepson and his girlfriend.

BillDL · October 2023

One of the potential issues, that I have no doubt a legal expert will prepare them for, is that if they receive any wages from work while they are off it is possible and even likely that the employer will try to reclaim some or all of the wages they paid while they were not working from the employee's final compensation payout. The same is apparently true of Statutory Sick Pay payments made to them if their employers don't pay them any wages while they are off. I have heard of instances where they reclaim Statutory Sick Pay payments made from insurance compensation payouts. To account for this I would guess that legal experts advise claimants to increase the claim amount knowing that a chunk of it will be claimed back from the eventual payout sum.

Dominic · October 2023

I would say that a lot of the Ambulance Chase pro bono firms tend to be hooked into the Insurance Company appointed Claims Management firms which are essentially just Car Hire firms in disguise with a favourite third rate Law firm that deals with personal injury .....( many of these firms are quite small with no more than one or two lawyers at most and a host of claims handlers calling themselves legal executives . )
The advantage in using them is zero outlay which they treat as an investment as they draw their fees on the payment of the claim but in this case they will be their friend/housemates insurer .
If you are very confident that there is zero blame on their part as passengers ,which is 99.9% likely then I would simply go direct to a good quality independent litigation firm and avoid using the third raters that claims management recommends .......as Fretmeister said ;absolutely not the insurers .
I know you are in Wales so I suspect you will need to go to Cardiff or Bristol although your contact face to face will be minimal so you could go London ......it will all be down to medical reports ,medical progress ,occupational assessment and lost income etc .All physio will be accounted for together with PTSD counselling etc etc .....they will use this to assess quantum for the trauma/distress aspect of the claim.
You will be surprised how low the scale of payments are for the injury itself ,surgery ,discomfort etc .'mental health'impacts are hrader to assess or quantify and may be more than the physical .....if you see what I mean !
It will take a long time .......maybe 3 years .

Funkfingers · October 2023

RaymondLin said:

be prepared for a LONG process.

This.

A work colleague of mine received what are euphemistically referred to as life-changing injuries in an oil refinery explosion and fire event in 2011.

He lodged a compensation claim against the site owners for his injuries, loss of earnings and loss of future earnings.

IIRC, the representatives of the site owners estimated the latter element by simply multiplying the claimant's base salary by the number of years of useful working life he would have had if he had not been injured. (c. £250k)

Being an advanced overtime grabber, the claimant's estimate of his lost future earnings was considerably higher. (Much nearer to seven figures.)

The matter remained unresolved for at least four years. I cannot report on the final settlement figure. It would have been tactless of me to enquire.

There was never any dispute about my colleague's entitlement to a payout. The to and fro was all about the amount (plus legal costs!).

munckee · October 2023

Yep, establish liability then quantum. It’s right that wages paid are taken into account but. There will be compensation on top. As already mentioned lots of factors come into play down to affected sleep and loss of sexual appetite etc.

if their compensation level is potentially high it’s likely their social media will be scrutinized intently they may even have private detectives tracking them.

sev112 · October 2023

@dominic would this be civil case under tort, in which case the burden of proof is lower ?

fretmeister · October 2023

There are life changing injuries and life changing injuries.

Having a foot cut off by farm equipment where the person is using a prosthetic and back working in a year can be a short claim. But a less immediately traumatic injury with long lasting symptoms can take far longer.

It also has very little to do with the legal part of the process. It’s usually because the independent medical experts will not provide a final prognosis (often in many different disciplines) for at least a year after the final planned treatment.

That time scale is about making sure the symptoms have settled down as best as possible. Otherwise settling the claim ends the chance of going back for more money if things turn for the worse.

After symptoms have settled and whatever condition the person is in is then considered to be permanent the future loss of earnings and other needs can be calculated. Sometimes that includes allowances for retraining for different jobs, sometimes it means working out how much to put a lift into a house and yearly maintenance for that lift. Sometimes it’s for 3 nurses for 24 hour a day care in the worst of cases. Sometimes it can be things that appear smaller but add up over the next 40 years. Deformity foot injuries are like that. The feet no longer fit in off the shelf shoes. So that’s £1500 for the first set of bespoke shoes, and then £500 for each subsequent one, but everyone needs more than 1 pair of shoes (probably black, brown, trainers, wellies), and they’ll need replacing every couple of years. That adds up fast.

4 years is nothing for life changing injuries with ongoing difficulties.

But, if there is a dispute about fault / liability then the court can allow a split trial where liability gets dealt with earlier, and quantum (money) gets dealt with later. For actually long matters that is very useful as winning the liability bit can mean the defendant will start releasing some money before the end of the matter, usually for earnings and rehabilitation expenses. But never so much that risks a refund situation if the claimant recovers far better and quickly than expected. Insurers will demand the refund!

The most important part of an injury claim is realising that they have nothing to do with any other injury claim.

They all turn on the individual facts.

Barry from the pub getting 100k for his broken arm has nothing to do with Jim getting only 25k for 2 broken legs. Compensation is made up of many smaller bits. People with larger salaries get higher loss of earnings etc etc. Barry probably earned 5 times what Jim did. Or maybe Barry couldn’t do his job at all without an arm so was off for longer, and Jim’s job actually wasn’t affected as he does it sitting down anyway so he didn’t lose any income.

And all that’s before we get to calculating injury affect on past and future pensions and investments incomes!

fretmeister · October 2023

sev112 said:

@dominic would this be civil case under tort, in which case the burden of proof is lower ?

It still has to be proved and more than that there is a duty to mitigate loss. If you need a hire car you don’t hire an S class when a Fiesta will do. You turn up to medical treatment when asked and do your physiotherapist to aid recovery when it is recommended. That sort of thing.

And if a claimant takes the piss on something they risk a finding of “Fundamental Dishonesty” which negates the claim. Lying about the number of taxi rides needed to get to hospital just to scam an extra £300 would negate the entire claim even if it was worth 100K or more…. With the added bonus of then having to pay the defendants costs, and very probably getting charged with attempting to defraud an insurance company.

Adey · October 2023

O presume it will also depend upon if any party is found to be "at fault" too. I guess that that can tale tale while to sort out.

breezytele · October 2023

I know Moore Barlow (Cheapside and other locations) deal with these sort of claims.

They’re linked to the major trauma unit at St George’s, Tooting.

Yes, it’s a type of ambulance chasing setup, but you do get people who specialise in personal injury .

Might be worth giving them a call.

Dominic · October 2023

fretmeister said:

sev112 said:

@dominic would this be civil case under tort, in which case the burden of proof is lower ?

It still has to be proved and more than that there is a duty to mitigate loss. If you need a hire car you don’t hire an S class when a Fiesta will do. You turn up to medical treatment when asked and do your physiotherapist to aid recovery when it is recommended. That sort of thing.

And if a claimant takes the piss on something they risk a finding of “Fundamental Dishonesty” which negates the claim. Lying about the number of taxi rides needed to get to hospital just to scam an extra £300 would negate the entire claim even if it was worth 100K or more…. With the added bonus of then having to pay the defendants costs, and very probably getting charged with attempting to defraud an insurance company.

Yes ,the duty to mitigate is an overriding issue .......honesty in matters of provable fact is key.....you always see the typical newspaper articles of the guy who can't bend from the waist photographed power-lifting in the gym !

BillDL · October 2023

Dominic said:

Yes ,the duty to mitigate is an overriding issue .......honesty in matters of provable fact is key.....you always see the typical newspaper articles of the guy who can't bend from the waist photographed power-lifting in the gym !

It may well be that I was the one who photographed / videod that guy and followed him to the golf course or observed him doing the gardening. I did that kind of covert surveillance for several years. I only worked for an investigation company for a retainer plus expenses basis, but I saw how much the company could make by providing an insurance company with sufficient solid evidence to refute a claim. The company was generally paid a percentage (probably around 5%) of the amount the insurance company would otherwise have had to pay out, so the invoices could be quite sizeable and I wish I had been a partner in the company.

p90fool · October 2023

Thanks all, there's loads of useful info for me here and via PM and I really appreciate it.

We are prepared for the long haul I guess, they have a lot of broken bones between them but she has internal injuries and has had part of her bowel removed, so obviously it will take a long time before anyone can say with certainty how that will pan out.

Apart from the obvious injuries the sad thing is that after a string of redundancies and a no-fault eviction things were looking up for them. They'd found a good house share and landed regular work together which they both enjoyed, but as their housemate and driver was also their supervisor it's all come crashing down really.

They won't be looking to make ridiculous claims, they're obviously and genuinely injured and were just getting by on very low wages.

Many thanks for all your suggestions, as I've said to Lee, much as we bang on about "don't ask a bunch of guitarists on a forum" when it's a serious issue you get more decent and detailed advice in a couple of hours here than you can from randomly trawling Google.

I wouldn't dream of asking you fuckers "Bigsby - yes or no?" though.

fretmeister · October 2023

BillDL said:

One of the potential issues, that I have no doubt a legal expert will prepare them for, is that if they receive any wages from work while they are off it is possible and even likely that the employer will try to reclaim some or all of the wages they paid while they were not working from the employee's final compensation payout. The same is apparently true of Statutory Sick Pay payments made to them if their employers don't pay them any wages while they are off. I have heard of instances where they reclaim Statutory Sick Pay payments made from insurance compensation payouts. To account for this I would guess that legal experts advise claimants to increase the claim amount knowing that a chunk of it will be claimed back from the eventual payout sum.

Third Party Recovery Clauses aka Subrogation Clauses are common in employment contracts where a person gets full pay for a while.

Basically it will say something like "If you are off sick and being paid in full and the reason for that absence is the negligence of someone else then you must include the employers outlay in your claim"

Then even though the injured person has been paid in full by the employer, the employer can piggyback on the claim and get their money back. This usually appears in Income Protection policies and other similar stuff like health insurance, credit card payment protection etc etc

HOWEVER....

What you cannot do is increase your claim to cover any clawbacks!

If you earn £1 per hour but while you are absent you get 25pence sick pay (or other reclaimable benefits administered by the DWP/CRU) then although you claim £1 loss of earnings you have already received 25pence of it. So you actually get 75 pence in the payout. That is all that you personally need to get 100% of your loss of earnings. If you were to get the £1 per hour and the 25 pence then you've been over-compensated and made profit on the claim, and in the UK that isn't allowed.

Earnings payments are also made to be net of tax as again the net amount is what would have been in your account but for the injury.

The Special Damages element of the claim (everything other than the injury compensation) is limited to what you have actually lost - to put you back into the same position as before the event. No profit allowed.

When the newspapers bang on about £10 million to someone that still isn't profit.

Round the clock nursing care. That's 3 nurses doing an 8 hour shift each. An agency will supply them for about £50K each per year (the nurses getting less of course). So That's £150,000 per year. If the injured person is 25 and due to the injuries is not expected to live a full life and might die at, say 50, then that is 25 years at £150,000 per year. That's £3,750,000 just for that element of the claim.

Those big payments are made up of stuff like this to address the needs of the injured person. The claimant doesn't get the money as such, but it is spent entirely for their benefit. In a long term nursing care matter the insurance company will usually pay it directly every year, and then stop when the claimant dies.

On top of that is 25 years of loss of earnings including estimated future inflationary rises and work promotions, powered wheelchairs and their servicing and replacement every 5 years or so, medication etc etc etc.

RaymondLin · October 2023

fretmeister said:

sev112 said:

@dominic would this be civil case under tort, in which case the burden of proof is lower ?

It still has to be proved and more than that there is a duty to mitigate loss. If you need a hire car you don’t hire an S class when a Fiesta will do. You turn up to medical treatment when asked and do your physiotherapist to aid recovery when it is recommended. That sort of thing.

And if a claimant takes the piss on something they risk a finding of “Fundamental Dishonesty” which negates the claim. Lying about the number of taxi rides needed to get to hospital just to scam an extra £300 would negate the entire claim even if it was worth 100K or more…. With the added bonus of then having to pay the defendants costs, and very probably getting charged with attempting to defraud an insurance company.

I remember one claimant claimed for dog walking expenses. She did not or does not have a dog.

You can claim for all kind of things, like if you have a garden and now can't tend to it, then you can claim for a weekly gardener, especially if an injury prevent you to do gardening for the rest of your life.

OP, note that the claimant might be put under surveillance, if there is a claim for say "unable to use his left hand", and if they catch you going Tesco and carrying shopping with his left hand...it's not going to look very good.

We caught someone who claimed the loss of his legs, with video footage of him playing football in the park with his grandkid. When shown to him and his solicitor, he got out of his wheelchair and walked out of the room.

p.s. I am not aware of any rule changes since I left the field...back in 2005, just not kept up with it since, there are no doubts lots of rule changes, I have not kept up to date of it all, or any.

fretmeister · October 2023

BillDL said:

Dominic said:

Yes ,the duty to mitigate is an overriding issue .......honesty in matters of provable fact is key.....you always see the typical newspaper articles of the guy who can't bend from the waist photographed power-lifting in the gym !

It may well be that I was the one who photographed / videod that guy and followed him to the golf course or observed him doing the gardening. I did that kind of covert surveillance for several years. I only worked for an investigation company for a retainer plus expenses basis, but I saw how much the company could make by providing an insurance company with sufficient solid evidence to refute a claim. The company was generally paid a percentage (probably around 5%) of the amount the insurance company would otherwise have had to pay out, so the invoices could be quite sizeable and I wish I had been a partner in the company.

The best one I heard of was a guy pretending to have a really bad back injury. Could still work a bit but otherwise claimed to be pretty bad.

The insurers were content that he had been injured but not to the extent he claimed....

One day there was a knock at his door. A chap with a van was returning from his market stall and was door knocking to see if anyone wanted to buy some veg that was otherwise getting binned as he was on holiday the next week.

The injured person said he'd have a look, and selected a 50kg bag of potatoes... and lifted up with ease. All in front of the Van Man and the photographer on the other side of the street...

Silly boy.

Offset · October 2023

p90fool said:

Thanks all, there's loads of useful info for me here and via PM and I really appreciate it.

We are prepared for the long haul I guess, they have a lot of broken bones between them but she has internal injuries and has had part of her bowel removed, so obviously it will take a long time before anyone can say with certainty how that will pan out.

Apart from the obvious injuries the sad thing is that after a string of redundancies and a no-fault eviction things were looking up for them. They'd found a good house share and landed regular work together which they both enjoyed, but as their housemate and driver was also their supervisor it's all come crashing down really.

They won't be looking to make ridiculous claims, they're obviously and genuinely injured and were just getting by on very low wages.

Many thanks for all your suggestions, as I've said to Lee, much as we bang on about "don't ask a bunch of guitarists on a forum" when it's a serious issue you get more decent and detailed advice in a couple of hours here than you can from randomly trawling Google.

I wouldn't dream of asking you fuckers "Bigsby - yes or no?" though.

Good luck mate and I hope both of them fully and quickly recover, which is the most important thing.

munckee · October 2023

We had a case where a chap had apparently suffered a terrible back injury and could only walk a few paces in total agony and needed a wheelchair the rest of the time. His employer submitted a poster adverting his next cage fight, at first he claimed he lost the fight but would have won if he didn’t have the injury - at that point the police became involved and he withdrew his claim.

Dominic · October 2023

BillDL said:

Dominic said:

Yes ,the duty to mitigate is an overriding issue .......honesty in matters of provable fact is key.....you always see the typical newspaper articles of the guy who can't bend from the waist photographed power-lifting in the gym !

It may well be that I was the one who photographed / videod that guy and followed him to the golf course or observed him doing the gardening. I did that kind of covert surveillance for several years. I only worked for an investigation company for a retainer plus expenses basis, but I saw how much the company could make by providing an insurance company with sufficient solid evidence to refute a claim. The company was generally paid a percentage (probably around 5%) of the amount the insurance company would otherwise have had to pay out, so the invoices could be quite sizeable and I wish I had been a partner in the company.

You are the real life Philip Marlowe.......I bet you've got a sleazy office with an even sleazier suspender wearing secretary and a half drunk bottle of Bourbon that you often sleep the night in ( with or without said secretarial assistant )

fretmeister · October 2023

RaymondLin said:

p.s. I am not aware of any rule changes since I left the field...back in 2005, just not kept up with it since, there are no doubts lots of rule changes, I have not kept up to date of it all, or any.

Ah - there have been huge rule changes since then. The Jackson Reforms / Budgeting / Costs and Case Management / Bundle Limits / Hot Tubbing of Experts / Extension of fixed costs (now up to claims of £100,000 as of yesterday).

I'd love to go back to 2005 rules!

RaymondLin · October 2023

fretmeister said:

RaymondLin said:

p.s. I am not aware of any rule changes since I left the field...back in 2005, just not kept up with it since, there are no doubts lots of rule changes, I have not kept up to date of it all, or any.

Ah - there have been huge rule changes since then. The Jackson Reforms / Budgeting / Costs and Case Management / Bundle Limits / Hot Tubbing of Experts / Extension of fixed costs (now up to claims of £100,000 as of yesterday).

I'd love to go back to 2005 rules!

I meant 2015 lol

But £100k on fixed cost? Geez, that's a HUGE jump, WTF.

fretmeister · October 2023

RaymondLin said:

fretmeister said:

RaymondLin said:

p.s. I am not aware of any rule changes since I left the field...back in 2005, just not kept up with it since, there are no doubts lots of rule changes, I have not kept up to date of it all, or any.

Ah - there have been huge rule changes since then. The Jackson Reforms / Budgeting / Costs and Case Management / Bundle Limits / Hot Tubbing of Experts / Extension of fixed costs (now up to claims of £100,000 as of yesterday).

I'd love to go back to 2005 rules!

I meant 2015 lol

But £100k on fixed cost? Geez, that's a HUGE jump, WTF.

It's not just on injury either - all civil lit with the temporary exception of clinical negligence.

There's a new track - the Intermediate. Between Fast and Multi.

And it has 4 bands of complexity and fixed costs.... all of which will cause more satellite litigation than anything we've seen for 50 years.

RaymondLin · October 2023

That sounds overly complicated and in the opposite ethos of the Woolf reform to speed things up…I bet these changes doesn’t really speed things up…

fretmeister · October 2023

They won't. It will be at least 5 years of bullshit arguments could have been avoided easily.

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Compensation for car crash victims

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