Accident At Work Compensation: Solicitor Sets Out What Losses You Can Claim For Workplace Injury
Work injuries can have a profound effect on your physical health and psychological well-being, as well causing you to lose pay when you are off work recovering. You will no doubt encounter costs and expenses you would not ordinarily have to incur as well as funding a solicitor to help you make your accident at work compensation claim.
In this article – we set out the main different types of compensation you can claim for personal injury in an accident at work – from pain and suffering to financial losses and legal costs in making your claim.
- Accident At Work Compensation: Solicitor Sets Out What Losses You Can Claim For Workplace Injury
What can you claim as part of your accident at work compensation?
There are generally four main types of compensation that you may be entitled to claim, which include:
(such as lost income from your inability to work) (for example – medical expenses, such as the cost of painkillers)
These sums are all added together by your solicitor to give the overall compensation payout amount you can claim, which include:
Financial Loss And Expense
If you suffer an injury at work – you will typically experience various financial losses and expenses.
Past And Future Financial Loss And Expense
Financial loss and expense are technically known as special damages, because they are unique or special to you as an individual.
They include both past losses (amounts you have already incurred when you claim settles) and future losses (sums you may have yet to experience in the future -after your claim concludes).
You must prove each aspect of your claim, including financial loss. Therefore, keep receipts and evidence to support these losses.
The types of financial loss can vary widely depending on your circumstances. However, typical expenses that might result from an accident at work, include:
Lost income
Your work accident may result in an injury that prevents you from being unable to work for a period of time. Therefore, you may be entitled to claim lost income as a net amount . That is – income after tax and national insurance is deducted.
Your Employer Continues To Pay Your Wages
Your employer may be required, under your employment contract, to continue paying you some income during your absence. Alternatively, your employer may exercise discretion to continue paying a wage.
Either way – your lost income claim would be calculated as the difference between your rate of pay prior to your accident and the rate during your absence.
Travel expenses
Your travel expenses can be claimed as part of your accident at work compensation.
For example – expenses of travel to and from hospital and your GP. This might be – bus fares, taxi expenses, train or tram travel, etc.
Use Of Your Own Vehicle
If you used your own vehicle (or family and friends drive you) for transport relating to your injuries – you can claim a mileage rate.
However – this rate can vary depending on the year that your claim is made.
Remember – to keep detailed records and receipts as you must, as always, prove this loss.
Medical expenses
You may be entitled to claim any medical expenses you experience. For example – the cost of painkillers, bandages, etc.
Expenses Must Be Reasonable
To succeed with claiming these expenses – you must prove they were reasonable given your injuries.
For example – consider private medical treatment for your work injury. This might be costly. Whereas the same treatment could be available via the NHS which costs nothing.
You are after all under a duty to mitigate your loss.
Nursing expense
Sometimes your work injuries are so bad that you were forced to pay for professional nursing assistance during your recovery period. Generally, you may be able to claim this expense.
Medical Expert Must Confirm Nursing Expense
The need for professional nursing assistance must be reasonable.
Therefore, your solicitor will need to have agreement from the independent medical expert that nursing assistance was necessary.
Care and assistance from friends and family
If family members or friends provide you with care and assistance – you are entitled to claim an hourly rate for their time spent.
However – statements from the individuals who supplied the assistance would be necessary to support this expense.
Loss of holiday
You may have had a holiday booked which you were unable to go on as a result of your work injury.
Therefore – you may be entitled to claim the cost of the holiday.
Alternatively, you may be able to go on the holiday, but are unable to enjoy the holiday due to your injury. In this instance – you may be entitled to claim for loss of enjoyment.
As always though – if you had holiday insurance that could pay for your lost holiday. you should mitigate your loss and use this policy.
Pain, Suffering & Loss Of Amenity
When you suffer injury in a work accident – whether a physical injury or psychological damage, that injury causes you pain and suffering.
In addition, it may stop you from being able to do things that you could do before your accident. Thus causing what is known as a loss of amenity.
These losses are not as easy to quantify as specials damages as nobody can truly put a monetary value on what you might be experiencing.
Assigning a monetary value to your pain and suffering
However, some form of monetary value must be assigned to compensate you for your pain and suffering.
Therefore – the law allowed pain and suffering to be classed as general damages.
In other words – the same injury will cause the same pain and suffering for everybody equally.
Therefore, no matter who you are – from royalty, to a factory worker, to the unemployed – each would receive in general the same amount of accident at work compensation for pain and suffering for the same injury.
Pain And Suffering Between Accidents Calculation Example
For example – imagine you fell from a ladder at work breaking your arm. You had to have pins inserted and your broken arm took 2 years to fully heal.
Compare this to the exact same broken arm in a car accident for your father.
In theory – both of your would recover the same amount of compensation for your respective pain and suffering.
However – if your arm took two years to recover and somebody else had a broken arm with a recovery of one year – clearly you would received more accident at work compensation for pain and suffering than the other individual.
Judicial guidance and caselaw
The amounts you can recover will depend on the nature of your work injury and severity as set out in a medico-legal report.
Your solicitor compares your specific injury to judicial guidance and claims decided by the courts in the past for similar injuries. Thus allowing a compensation payout figure to be determined.
See our general damages compensation payout article for an alphabetical list of body part injury / psychological injury with examples of up to date compensation amounts for each type of injury.
Interest On Compensation
You are entitled to claim interest on both general damages and special damages. This rate of interest will vary depending on whether the type of damage is general or special.
However, you are only entitled to interest once your claim has commenced in court.
Interest on general damages runs from the date you commenced your claim in court and interest on special damages runs from the date that your accident occurred.
Solicitor’s Legal Costs Of Making Your Work Injury Claim
See our no win no fee / conditional fee agreement article for a description of what your legal costs include.
Should you win your claim – your employer / employer’s insurer will pay the majority of your legal costs in addition to your work injury compensation.
However – your claim must be beyond what is known as the small claims limit. In other words – your pain and suffering compensation for your injury must be beyond a certain amount.
Subject to Payment of Legal Costs
Generally – for you to be entitled to receive payment your legal costs prior to commencement in court of your claim – your work accident solicitor must accept compensation on your behalf “subject to the payment of legal costs”.
SUMMARY – Accident At Work Compensation
In summary – you have learnt the main types compensation you can claim following an accident at work.
FREE Legal Help
We offer a number of specialist solicitor free online / telephone help options.
You can not only ask a question, but also have your claim assessed or speak direct with a solicitor to discuss making an accident at work compensation claim.
