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Serious injury

Introduction to serious injuries

If you or your loved-one suffers what insurers refer to as a ‘catastrophic injury’ life is likely to become difficult. Spinal injuries, brain injuries, severe burns or amputations change your life and that of your family forever.
24-hour care may become a necessity. Special equipment may be required and your home may need to be adapted. Months of rehabilitation may follow the accident, which has led to your serious injury. Re-training may become necessary. For some people, their serious injury will mean the end of their working lives.
You will need financial support to rebuild your life.
Our Serious Injuries Unit has put together the following information to help you to understand the process of making a personal injury compensation claim for a catastrophic injury.

More than just a legal service – what is the Thompsons Serious Injury Unit?
What you need to know about bringing a compensation claim for catastrophic injury
About Personal Injury compensation claims and what you can claim for
Our Serious Injury Lawyers
Our Commitment to Serve you
Amputations
Loss of Sight
Spinal injuries
Brain Injuries
Head Injuries
Burn Injuries and Scald Injuries
Fatal Injuries
Articles and factsheets for seriously injured individuals
Our Serious Injury Clients
These types of cases can be very complex and you should always speak to a lawyer before commencing a compensation claim. For more information telephone us on 08000 224 224 or complete one of our online compensation claim forms.

More than just a legal service – what is the Thompsons Serious Injury Unit?

If you work with our Serious Injury Unit you will have more than just a team of lawyers fighting your case. At Thompsons, we have led the way in securing compensation for serious injuries since the 1970s.
We set up our Serious Injury Unit to bring together the most specialist personal injury lawyers with medical and disability experts to fight for justice for the most seriously injured victims of accidents.
Our Serious Injury Unit is lead by a number of highly experienced partners, some of whom have over 26 years expertise in dealing with personal injury claims.
Our primary objective is always to secure the maximum compensation for our clients in the shortest possible time and we have earned a reputation for taking on cases and winning where little prospect of success seemed the situation.
In 1987 one of our lawyers, Steve Allen achieved a landmark settlement, being the highest ever settlement at the time, of £850,000 for a brain injury caused by inhaling fumes. It was also one of the first cases to include a compensation claim for care, mobility, accommodation needs, computer and disability equipment.

Since then, and as medical science and technology have advanced, the number of serious injury cases has increased along with the amount of compensation obtained. In 1994 we achieved the highest ever award at the time for a road traffic accident victim in the sum of £3.4 million. Since then Thompsons have settled many serious injury cases resulting in awards of compensation from one hundred thousand pounds to multi-million pound settlements.

It is every lawyer’s job to provide the best possible legal advice to his or her client. This is where experience really counts. There may come a time when you will need your lawyer to advise as to whether you should settle or continue to fight for a higher award. This is where it pays to have sound advice.
If you would like to discuss what kind of service we can offer you or someone you know please phone us on 08000 224 224 or complete one of our online personal injury compensation claim forms. We will meet you to discuss your situation and how we can help you.
You will be under no obligation to instruct us but if Thompsons Solicitors do deal with your claim you will keep 100% of the compensation awarded to you and we will recover our legal fees from the person responsible for your injury or their insurers.
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What you need to know about bringing a compensation claim for catastrophic injury

Serious injury or catastrophic injury is a very specialist area so it is important that your solicitor has specific experience in this field. At Thompsons, we have the level of advice and experience that you will need.
You may be able to seek compensation in a range of circumstances and we recommend that you speak with one of our specialist personal injury lawyers if you are not sure. Serious injuries for which we have recovered compensation for our clients include Brain and Spinal Injuries, Severe Burns or Scalds, Loss of Sight and Amputations.
Legal action must be commenced within three years of the date you first knew, or could reasonably have been expected to know, that you have suffered an injury caused through someone else's fault. Different rules apply to children and to people who are incapable of handling their own affairs.
You should visit a specialist catastrophic injury solicitor as soon as possible since there is a vast amount of work to be done before bringing a compensation claim.
We will need to obtain full details of the accident and how it occurred. Supporting witness evidence and documentation will need to be obtained and considered. It is often the case that we will want very early medical assessments in order to asses what specialist medical assistance may be required and what rehabilitative support may be available. In some cases it is necessary to apply for an interim payment to cover the cost of these. Specialist care may be required and often the cost of this can be covered by an interim payment either made voluntarily by the insurer or by Court order.
Negligence has to be proved irrespective of the level of injury caused. However, often in serious injury cases, because the potential level of damages is going to be very high, insurance companies will do everything they can to deny liability or to argue that the injured person contributed to the accident and that damages should therefore be reduced.
As well as proving negligence, it is necessary to prove that the injuries and the disabilities arising from the accident were a consequence of that negligence.
In catastrophic injury cases, the injuries are severe and it may be some time to establish the full extent of disability. There are likely to be a number of injuries ranging from fractures, head injury and spinal cord damage. We will instruct specialist medical experts to assess these. In addition there may be and early need for specialist rehabilitation, domestic and medical care, disability aids and support for family carers.
The cost of all this can be claimed provided it can be shown to be reasonably necessary and of benefit to the quality of life of the inured person.
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About Personal Injury Compensation Claims and what you can claim for

When someone is injured in an accident they are entitled to claim accident compensation for their injuries and financial losses provided it can be shown that someone else was at fault and that their negligence caused the injuries. In some cases this is straightforward. Often this is not the case and evidence has to be obtained to prove the negligence.
This can involve obtaining witness evidence, accident documents, and in some cases the early intervention of an expert engineer or other appropriate expert is required.
Interim payments can be applied for to cover this, although this can be more difficult if there is a significant dispute as to who was to blame.
In a successful case compensation will consist of damages for pain and suffering, loss of earnings to date, future loss of earnings, the cost of care provided by family members, family members’ reasonable expenses visiting the injured person, the cost of care, past and future, the cost of specialist rehabilitation, the cost of house adaptations, disability equipment, the cost of a case manager.
All these items in severe cases are necessary to restore a reasonable quality of life to the injured person and can add up to a significant sum of compensation. Compensation in these cases is not some sort of windfall or lottery win but the sum that is necessary to enable the injured person to have a reasonable quality of life.
Compensation can be paid in a number of ways; either a lump sum, or a combination of lump sum and periodic payments. In some cases variable periodic payments. We will advise you on the various options at the appropriate time.
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Our Serious Injury Lawyers

At Thompsons Solicitors we have teams of lawyers based regionally around the UK who specialise in dealing with personal injury claims relating to serious injuries.
They all have a wealth of experience of handling high-value claims which is very important when life-changing or catastrophic injuries are involved.
Follow the link to our Serious Injuries Lawyers page to read more about Thompsons Serious Injury Lawyers and examples of cases they have dealt with.