Child Injury Claims: UK Solicitor summarizes all the steps to claiming compensation and how the claims process differs than that for claims involving adults
Child injury claims: Discover all the steps to making child injury claims in the UK, detailed pages setting out each type of common child accident, FAQ’s from previous site visitors with a free online specialist solicitor legal help option.
What is the child injury claims process in a nutshell?
Child Injury Claims
Compensation claims for injuries involving children have some important differences than accident claims involving adults. The UK claims process in a nutshell includes:
1. Your child must be a child as defined by UK law
To be considered a child, or a “minor”, for the purpose of making a child injury claim in the UK – your child must be under the age of 18 years.
“Minors” include very young children, such as babies, infants and toddlers
2. An adult must provide instructions on behalf of a child
A child is entitled to claim compensation for injuries and financial loss following an accident just the same as an adult, but a child cannot form a binding contract with a solicitor to make a claim nor provide instructions as to how to claim compensation including how much compensation to accept.
For this reason – a parent, relative or guardian will act as a “litigation friend” and provide instructions on behalf of the child and form a contract with a lawyer to pursue a child injury claim.
3. Child injury claims must be proved
Child injury claims are proved much the same as any other accident claim – this is best left to your solicitor, but will involve showing that a person was legally at fault for your child’s injury and producing medical evidence to demonstrate the injuries your child has suffered.
Children are less likely to be safety conscious and might even be innocently trespassing when an injury is suffered – the law tries to protect children so a person is much more likely to be found legally responsible for an injury to a child than a similar injury to an adult.
4. Your solicitor will decide how much compensation your child is entitled to claim
Your solicitor will acquire independent medical evidence to show the severity and extent of your child’s injuries. Your lawyer will look at previous court cases to compare your child’s injuries, as described in the medical report, with similar injuries suffered by other accident victims in the past to see the amounts of compensation that could be expected. Adjustments are made for inflation.
5. Court authorisation to conclude a child injury claims
Unlike compensation claims for adults – a court must be involved to conclude child injury claims in a hearing known as a “minor settlement hearing” or an “infant approval hearing”.
The court must be satisfied that your child does not have ongoing injury symptoms and if symptoms are ongoing a judge will wish to see medical evidence is full and precise as to what the future holds for the recovery process.
The court must be satisfied that the amount of compensation is sufficient – to do this a judge will need to see a barrister’s opinion on how much the claim is worth.
If the court is satisfied the child injury claim can be ended at the hearing itself.
6. Court Investment of compensation monies on behalf of your child
At the end of the hearing the judge will discuss with the litigation friend about investment of your child’s compensation in the court’s fund office. Due to pooling of monies of many child cases the interest and investment rates should be quite high.
The money will be held for your child until the age of 18 years – at that age your child is considered by UK law to be an adult and able to act responsibly with the compensation money.
Is detailed information on all the aspects of child injury claims available on this website?
“Yes” – this page is a summary of the child injury claims process, but I have written a detailed page on each aspect of making a claim as well as the different types of accident that can occur – such as at accidents at school, trips in shops, injuries on private land, child head injury claims, etc.
Click injury minor to see a summary of all the pages I have written with a link to the page you might find of interest.
Click child accident claims to see child injury claim FAQ’s with links to detailed answers I have provided.
Click child accident claims to see the blogs I have written relating to child injury claims.
Child injury claims page summary
On this page I have summarised the key steps to making a child injury claim with links to all the detailed pages I have written setting out different types of child accident and injuries.
Click child injury claims to view my website’s free legal help options including having your child injury claim assessed online free of charge.
