Spine Injury Claims – Find Out How Much Compensation You Can Claim

Spinal injuries can have a detrimental impact on a person’s life. Not only can they cause significant pain, but they can also reduce a person’s independence. Therefore, if a spine injury was suffered in an accident that was someone else’s fault, spine injury claims could be made. If your personal injury claim is successful, you may be awarded a compensation payout for your injuries and financial losses.

Key Takeaways:

  • You may claim compensation for any type of spinal injury if it was caused by a person who breached their duty of care.
  • The amount of compensation you are awarded depends on the extent of your injuries and financial losses.
  • Spinal injuries may happen in road traffic accidents, accidents at work or accidents in public places.
  • If you are struggling financially due to your injuries, you may request an interim payment.
  • Our panel of No Win No Fee solicitors may help you claim compensation.

To find out if you could claim compensation, speak to our advisors today by:

X-ray of a person who has sustained a back injury and the injury is highlighted in red and yellow

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Eligibility Criteria For Spinal Injury Claims

If another person was responsible for your spinal injury, then you may able to make a compensation claim. However, spine injury claims must meet the following criteria:

  • The third party must have owed you a duty of care
  • The third party must have acted negligently, causing this duty to become breached
  • This must have caused your spinal injury

A duty of care is a legal obligation imposed on specific individuals who must ensure people in their care are reasonably safe. There are many situations when you may be owed a duty of care, for example:

On The Roads

All road users have a duty to use the roads responsibly and to ensure the safety of others. To comply with this duty, they must adhere to the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code.

You may be eligible to make a road traffic accident claim if you were injured due to a user of the road breaching their duty of care. For example:

  • A drunk driver runs through a red light and crashes into your car, causing you to become paralysed due to the severity of the crash.

In Public Places

Under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, all occupiers (those in control) of spaces have a duty to keep members of the public reasonably safe while on their premises.

You may be eligible to make a public liability claim if you were injured due to an occupier breaching their duty of care. For example:

  • A library was aware of a faulty railing on a staircase but failed to fix the issue in a timely manner. This causes you to fall down the stairs and suffer a soft tissue injury in your back.

At Work

Under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, employers have a duty to take reasonable and practicable steps to protect the health and safety of their employees.

You may be eligible to make an accident at work claim if you were injured due to your employer breaching their duty of care. For example:

  • Your employer provides you with a known faulty ladder. While using it, one of the ladder rungs breaks and you fall from a heat, causing you to suffer a fracture in your spine.

Contact our helpful advisors today to find out if you are eligible to claim compensation for your spinal injury.

How To Start A Spinal Injury Compensation Claim

If you want to start a personal injury claim, the following sections will explain how this may be possible so that you can potentially be compensated for your spinal injury and other losses.

The Evidence You’ll Need To Support Your Claim

For a personal injury claim to be successful, you must prove that the negligent actions of a third party caused your spinal injury. To do this, it is important to provide evidence that supports your claim.

Some examples of evidence you may obtain include:

  • CCTV or dashcam footage
  • Photographs of your injuries
  • Copies of medical reports
  • Copies of police reports, if possible
  • A copy of the accident report book

If you are struggling to obtain evidence, a solicitor from our panel may help you do this. Once this has all been collected and reviewed, they may then begin to build your case.

How Long You Have To Start A Claim

You typically have three years from the date of your accident to start a personal injury claim under the Limitation Act 1980. However, there are some exceptions to this rule, such as:

  • If the person wanting to claim lacks mental capacity, the time limit will be indefinitely paused, but if they recover this capacity, they have three years to start the claim from this date.
  • If the injured is a child, they cannot start their own claim until their 18th birthday, from which they will have three years to do so.

While the time limit is paused, a responsible adult may claim on the injured person’s behalf as a litigation friend.

How Much Does It Cost To File A Claim?

It technically does not cost you anything to begin a personal injury claim. However, throughout the claiming process there may be certain fees you have to pay.

For example, if your solicitor organises for you to attend an independent medical assessment, you may need to pay for this.

Additionally, certain solicitors may also charge you for their services while working on your case. Our panel of solicitors work on a No Win No Fee basis meaning you do not need to pay for their services throughout the claiming process. We will discuss this in more depth later on in this guide.

Finding A Suitable Solicitor

Although you are not required to work with a solicitor for spine injury claims, doing so may be beneficial. Working with a solicitor who specialises in this type of claim could help make the claiming processes go smoother as they can ensure that the correct documents are obtained, proceedings are started within the time limit, and they can negotiate a fair compensation settlement on your behalf.

The solicitors on our panel have years of experience working on a variety of personal injury claims and could help you with yours.

How Long It Can Take For You To Receive A Payout

There is no specific time frame for how long personal injury claims take to settle. As such, we cannot give you a date for when you may receive a compensation payout during the initial stages of the claims process.

A number of factors may determine how long it may take to receive a payout, such as:

  • Whether the third party has admitted liability
  • Whether your medical treatment is ongoing
  • Whether all of the evidence has been obtained

Despite this, our panel will work quickly and efficiently to settle your claim as soon as possible.

To learn more about the spine injury claims process, you can contact our advisors.

An x-ray of a man showing a spinal injury highlighted in red

Different Spinal Injuries You Can Claim For

A spinal injury can have both a minor and catastrophic impact on a person’s life. This is because they may cause minimal damage or life-limiting damage, depending on the extent of the injury.

Some examples of spinal injuries you may claim compensation for include:

  • Spinal cord injuries
  • Breaks and fractures
  • Herniated disc
  • Paralysis

Paraplegic And Quadriplegic Injuries

Two common spine injuries you may be eligible to claim for are paraplegic and quadriplegic.

Paraplegic spinal injuries cause partial paralysis that affects the functioning of a person’s legs. It often results in symptoms such as limited mobility of the legs and loss of muscle tone.

Quadriplegic injuries cause paralysis of all a person’s limbs as it is a spinal injury that derives from the neck down. This may result in symptoms such as limited mobility in each limb and chronic pain.

If you have sustained a spinal injury, contact our advisors to see if you could claim compensation.

Spine Injury Compensation – How Much Can I Claim For?

In personal injury claims, compensation awards differ in each case. This is because the unique factors of each case will effect the amount awarded.

The Factors Considered In Your Payout

Various factors will affect the amount of compensation that could be awarded in successful spine injury claims. Some examples include:

  • The type of accident you were involved in.
  • What injuries you suffered and their severity.
  • What treatment you need.
  • The expected recovery period.
  • If there were any financial losses suffered.

General And Special Damages

General damages compensate you for the physical and psychological injuries you suffered from your accident. For example, a spinal fracture. They are awarded in all successful personal injury claims.

Your general damages may be calculated using documents from an independent medical report and the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This official document contains lists of injuries alongside their suggestive compensation brackets.

Here is a table of spinal injuries and their compensation figures from the JCG, excluding the first entry.

InjuryCompensation
Severe Multiple Injuries and Significant Financial LossesUp to £5 million plus
Paralysis - Tetraplegia£396,140 to £493,000
Paralysis - Paraplegia£267,340 to £346,890
Severe Back Injuries (i)£111,150 to £196,450
Severe Back Injuries (ii)£90,510 to £107,910
Severe Back Injuries (iii) £47,320 to £85,100
Moderate Back Injuries (i) £33,880 to £47,320
Moderate Back Injuries (ii)£15,260 to £33,880
Minor Back Injuries (i) £9,630 to £15,260

Special damages compensate you for any financial losses you incurred resulting from your injuries, such as:

  • Loss of earnings
  • Lost workplace benefits
  • Medical and travel costs
  • Special equipment costs
  • Care costs, both professional and from family
  • Rehabilitation costs

However, to claim special damages, you must provide evidence of your financial losses, such as:

  • Payslips
  • Bank statements
  • Bills
  • Receipts

To see whether you may be eligible to claim compensation for your spine injury, you can contact our advisors today.

A man sitting in a wheelchair after sustaining a spinal injury

Interim Payments And How They Can Affect Your Compensation

Interim payments are advanced payments of the compensation you are owed in personal injury claims. It is usually makes up a percentage of the expected overall compensation payout.

You may be entitled to make an application to the court for this if you need financial support during the claims process for things such as:

  • Health care
  • Home adjustments
  • Costs towards support care

The court may accept an application for an interim payment if:

  • The third party admits liability, or it is likely that your claim will be successful.
  • The amount you are asking for is less than the total compensation you may be awarded.
  • You have a good reason to request the payment

To learn more about interim payments, contact our helpful advisors.

Why Choose Public Interest Lawyers?

Our panel of solicitors are vastly experienced with making personal injury claims. They are able to use their skills to help you claim compensation by:

  • Supporting you through every step of the claiming process.
  • Explaining important legal terms.
  • Helping you gather evidence.
  • Negotiating your compensation.

Our panel of solicitors also work on a No Win No Fee basis. Therefore, if you are eligible, you may use their services to claim compensation under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). Here are some advantages of this:

  • You are not required to pay any ongoing or upfront costs for their services.
  • If your claim is successful, our panel will take a small, legally capped percentage of your awarded compensation. This is known as a success fee.
  • For non-successful claims, you are not required to pay any costs for our panel’s work on your case.

To see if a spine injury claims solicitor from our panel could help you on a No Win No Fee basis, you can contact our advisors:

A solicitor sat at his desk, shaking hands with his client over their spine injury claim

More Information

To learn more about spinal injuries and personal injury claims, you can access the links below:

References:

Thank you for reading this guide on spine injury claims.