Lynne, a keen cyclist, was riding on the road when she was hit by an oncoming vehicle. Although she was wearing a helmet, she still suffered a severe head injury and was unconscious.
The police and an ambulance were called to the scene before Lynne was taken to a local trauma centre for emergency assessment and treatment.
She was initially in a coma, and when she did regain consciousness, she had some loss of memory. Physically, Lynne was generally weak from having been bedridden, but she also had some other weakness because of her brain injury. Not uncommonly for people living with a brain injury, she also developed some challenging behaviours and general fatigue.
Potential liability
As the police had secured the details of the vehicle and driver, we were able to make early contact with the relevant insurers as part of her bicycle accident claim. Whilst we asked them to confirm that they accepted liability for the injury, we also proposed that they agreed to the instruction of a specialist brain injury case manager. In cases of serious injury like this, an insurer will often want to support the rehabilitation needs of the injured person, even while they investigate the potential liability of their insured. In this case, they agreed for a case manager to be instructed to carry out an immediate needs assessment so that we could together better understand and support Lynne’s rehabilitation needs.
We, therefore, instructed a specialist brain injury case manager to see Lynne and assess her needs, which identified, amongst other items, the need for neurorehabilitation, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and ongoing case management. This was in addition to the support already available to her from the NHS.
Hierarchy of road users
Although the insurer initially supported Lynne’s numerous rehabilitation needs, after completing their investigations into liability, they fully denied responsibility for the collision. They argued that she was fully at fault and would not pay her any compensation.
Despite this disappointing reply on liability, we strongly disagreed with their liability assessment. Our opinion was based in part on the most recent changes to the Highway Code, which now expressly refers to the hierarchy of risk of different road users. We maintained that Lynne’s legal claim for damages still had reasonable prospects of succeeding. We, therefore, continue to prepare her case for court proceedings so that a judge ultimately can decide the issue of whom was responsible for the collision and Lynne’s injuries.
* Not their real name
