Catastrophic Injury Claims

When do I make a catastrophic injury claim?

After a catastrophic injury, you will have been taken to hospital and the medical team will have provided your initial treatment and care.  Very often this will involve one or more operations.  After then, when you are recovering, the hospital will usually involve other health professionals, such as occupational therapists and physiotherapists, to help with your rehabilitation and work towards your discharge home.

As lawyers who specialise in catastrophic injury claims, many patients contact us very soon after their catastrophic injury to ask for our help.  The main advantage of us being involved at this early stage, is that we may be able to arrange more rehabilitation to facilitate your discharge. Early rehabilitation intervention improves your chances of reaching your maximal recovery sooner.  Your health is the top priority.

How can we help with your rehabilitation?

To help us work alongside your medical team, where possible, we will instruct a case manager in suitable cases.  A case manager is an independent healthcare professional (often a registered nurse, occupational therapist, or physiotherapist) who works outside of the legal claim process.  They would be asked to see you, often in your home environment, to prepare an immediate needs assessment report. They have access to your medical records and so are best placed to identify any additional care or support needs that you may require, as well as any aids or adaptations that you need.

The case manager is often instructed jointly with an insurance company of the person or organisation we consider is legally responsible for causing your catastrophic injuries.  However, sometimes this is not always possible for a number of reasons, in which case we may be able to instruct the case manager unilaterally, in suitable cases.

Depending on the severity of your catastrophic injuries, their impact on your life, and how you recover, the case manager may be involved supporting, coordinating your rehabilitation needs for a long time.

Evidence needed to make a claim

When we first come and see you, we will need to know that details of the incident that caused your catastrophic injury.  As well as taking detail of your memory of what happened, we will also want to know if there are any photos or CCTV of the incident, and whether you have the details of any witnesses. 

Objects involved in the incident may also provide important evidence and should be kept.  Depending on how you suffered your catastrophic injury, there may be other bodies investigating the incident for regulatory or criminal investigation purposes.  For example, the police should attend all catastrophic road collisions and release a copy of any their report once the criminal process is completed. 

In workplace accidents, there may also be inquiries by the Health and Safety Executive or the Local Authority, depending on which body oversees that workplace.  These reports can contain important evidence which may support establishing what happened and who should take legal responsibility.

Starting the claim

It should be possible from meeting with you to have a good idea of who you should hold to blame for your catastrophic injury.  This may be a person, or sometimes it may be the organisation employing that person, and on other occasions it may be several parties.  If you have suffered a catastrophic brain injury you may not remember the incident.  In these circumstances, you may still be able to establish a claim and should still speak with a catastrophic injury lawyer.

We will send a letter of claim to the person you hold responsible for your catastrophic injury.  In some cases, we may be able to find out who the insurer is, as there are some databases of motor insurers and workplace insurers.  In which case, the letter of claim goes straight to the insurer.  The letter of claim sets out the basic circumstances of the incident, why we hold them responsible, brief details of your injuries and other losses such as lost income, as well as some other details.  We also nominate details of the case managers we propose are suitable to prepare your immediate needs assessment.

It is usual for the insurer to acknowledge your letter of claim within 21 days, and to confirm their decision on whether they accept responsibility for your catastrophic injury within the next 3 months.  Although sometimes liability may not always be resolved in that time if say, the accident circumstances are unclear or are contested, or the insurer wants to see a police accident report before confirming their stance.

Rehabilitation Code 2015 and serious injury guide

The court’s pre-action protocol makes it clear that parties should cooperate in line with Rehabilitation Code 2015, in facilitating early rehabilitation.  However, there are weaknesses in the Rehabilitation Code, so we are also voluntary signatories of the Serious Injury Guide along with other specialist serious injury lawyers and many insurers.  This demonstrates our commitment to your rehabilitation and means that when the insurer or lawyer who represents the other party is also a signatory to the Serious Injury Guide, we can use it to your benefit.  In many bicycle accident injury cases we are able to arrange early rehabilitation, even if an insurer is still reserving its position on whether to accept liability for the injury.

In our team we also have a client support manager, who is a registered social worker.  She supports clients and their families, particularly in the early stages of a serious injury claim, when an insurer may not yet be engaged.  The issues they support with are varied, but they may especially be needed if a client is ready to be discharged from hospital, but their home is unsuited because of their injuries.  In these cases, the client support manager will liaise with the relevant local authority, who have a statutory duty in the circumstances to provide support.

Medical evidence to support a catastrophic injury claim

In any injury claim, the burden of proof rests with you. This means that even if a party accepts responsibility for your injury, then you must still prove the extent of the injuries caused by the incident and your prognosis.  In addition, you must prove what other losses have reasonably been caused either in the incident, such as car repairs, or caused by the injury, such as loss of earnings or care.

This means that expert evidence is key in supporting the claim.  We work with leading expert witnesses across a range of medical disciplines to establish the full impact of the injuries.  This includes not only assessing the current situation, but also looking ahead and considering the chances of, for example, a deterioration in symptoms due to arthritis in a joint brought on by the accident, which may impact someone’s work capacity or care needs.  Another example may be someone with a brain injury who, as a result, may be at an increased risk of developing epilepsy.  For some people, if it occurred, it would prevent them from driving, or working at height or with machinery.  This clearly would have a significant impact on the value of a claim. 

In fact, in such a case, we would advise the client that their interests would be best protected by settling their claim on a provisional basis.  This means that they could a agree a settlement on the assumption that the epilepsy will not occur but retaining the ability to claim further compensation for the full extent of their epilepsy injury and associated losses if the epilepsy did develop in the expected time frame.

Interim payments

Interim payments are another way in which we can support people with a catastrophic injury.  A catastrophic injury will often have a significant impact on someone’s ability to work.  This may only be whilst they are receiving treatment and rehabilitation however, some people may never be able to return to their work or may have to take up different work which pays less.

It is therefore unsurprising that many people with a catastrophic injury will have financial needs.  When an insurer is engaged, we are often able to secure significant, early interim payments for clients.  In some instances, an insurer does not cooperate, so we advise clients on the option of applying to the court for an order.

Negotiate a settlement

When we have all the evidence needed to support a catastrophic injury claim, we will enter negotiations with the insurer.  This could be by an exchange of settlement offers however, on more significant injury cases this may be done in a face-to-face meeting with the other party’s lawyers.  In these cases, we will also involve a specialist catastrophic injury barrister to assist in these meetings and, if a settlement is not agreed, the same barrister will help prepare and present your case at trial.