Personal Injury refers to an individual who suffers an injury in an accident due to someone else fault. In personal injury claims, the injured claims for damages and losses incurred as a direct result of an accident or incident. Such a claim must be made with 3 years from the date of accident or date when the injury was first known to have happened. Personal Injury claims encompass all kind of accidents or injuries that may arise from car accidents, slip, trips and fall accidents, defective products or faulty equipment or machinery.
Personal Injury
RKM Law provides excellent personal injury advice and representations. We pride ourselves for having a strong network of experts in different discipline of medicine and in other areas. Upon an eligibility assessment, we accept instructions on a No Win No Fee basis which means you pay nothing if your case is unsuccessful.
What is Personal Injury?
Types of Personal Injury
Once on the road you bear the risk of being involved in an accident. When you are involved in a car accident, you may be entitled to make a claim for damages and losses, subject that you are not at fault. Damages and losses include cost of fixing or replacing your car, cost of your medical treatments and any other pain or sufferings or psychological impact, be it short term or long term. Personal Injury claim is made against both the responsible party and his/her insurance company. In RTAs, it does not matter if you were the driver, passenger, pedestrian or cyclist. RTA is not always minor and at times an injury may take time to heal, or prevent you from starting a job or force you to stop working as well as causing more complication towards your general health.
We all work and are all subject to an accident if care is not taken or if the employer is not prudent. Every employer is responsible for the safety of its employees and must have a valid insurance at all times. A workplace must be safe and all foreseeable risks or hazards must be dealt with by the employer through its health and safety procedure. With the recent Covid-19 pandemic, employers bear a higher burden to ensure safety by providing adequate personal protection equipment (PPE). No employee is obliged to work in a condition that is deemed unsafe. The law makes substantial provisions to protect employees and no employee should fear to report or make a claim for any accident. It is noteworthy that any compensation will come from the employer’s insurer and not your superior pocket. Accidents, injuries and work-related illnesses are often caused by employers and managers failing to follow health and safety rules.
Slips, Trips and Falls (STF) can be very serious thus causing spinal, head, brain injuries or fractured bones followed by further associated medical complication. STF often happens in a premise (e.g workplace, shopping mall etc) or public place like on the road or pavement due to poor lighting or wet surfaces. STF can cause a series of injuries and cannot be listed. Suffice to say, that the owner of the premises or the Council may be liable for any damage or loss subject to evidence of your injury.
An accident may also cause death of our loved ones or life-changing injuries. As much as we will be sympathetic, we will leave no stone unturned to make the wrong-doer pay a hefty compensation. Fatal accident or Life Changing Injuries are the extreme consequences of personal injuries.
The Procedure for Personal Injury
RKM Law will handle your claim from start to finish and will keep you updated on the progress. You will be required to provide us with all the relevant information and evidence of your injury and you will be expected to follow our advice accordingly. Some claims may be settled before we even issue a claim to the Court but others may require the intervention of the court. The more information you provide us about your injury the better it is. The process can be best summarised as below:
Our Personal Injury solicitor will hear you out to ascertain whether you have a valid claim or not. Once this is established you will be introduced to your allocated caseworker or solicitor and will be given our Client Care Letter. You will be asked to read through before taking an informed decision. Subsequently, your claim will move to the next stage – Assessment.
Your Personal Injury Solicitor will go through all your documentation including evidences and facts. Based on the information available, you will be given with a preliminary advice which will be subject to expert reports or findings. An action plan will also be put in place whereby we will set a roadmap for your claim which involves instructing medical experts, CBT sessions, Physiotherapy session or any other urgent medical assistance.
Once the facts of your claim is clear we will send a letter of claim to the Defendant or report same to the relevant online accident portal. Upon receipt of the Defendant response, we may further consider our preliminary advice given based on new facts. Usually at this stage, the aim is to know whether the Defendant accepts full responsibility of the injury. This will gives us a good bearing on whether the settlement value.
Once we have derived a settlement value, we will initiate negotiation with the Defendant. At times, it is the Defendant who starts the negotiation. Either way, your Solicitor will put forward your interest and ensure that the end result is favourable. If settlement figure has been agreed, same will be transcribed in an agreement called Consent Order or Tomlin Order before the Defendant pays the compensation.
Where negotiation has failed, we will issue Court proceedings. A personal injury claim must be filed to the Court within 3 years from the date of the incident. Once the claim has been sealed by the Court, it will go through several stages like track allocation, case management hearing, disclosures etc. Your Solicitor will provide you with all relevant information. It may also be possible that negotiation can happen in the middle of the Court process. This will lead to a trial where your case will be decided by a Judge and your compensation amount will be determined.