According to the International Labour Organisation, more than 337 million work accidents happen each year. In Great Britain, an estimated 581 000 workers suffered non-fatal injuries in the workplace, for the period between 2018 and 2019.
What Is A Serious Work Injury Claim?
Generally, work injuries are caused by various types of accidents that happen in the workplace. A work accident is an accidental but often predictable incident that happens in the workplace, because of certain conditions of the place or premises, because of the way in which a job is carried out, or because of how certain equipment is being used. As a result of these factors, an accident ensues and someone (usually an employee) experiences a work injury. A serious work injury would usually result in partial immobility, loss of limb, back or brain injuries A work injury claim is then the process where the employee, who was the victim of the accident at work, files a legal claim for financial compensation against the person that is legally responsible for their work injury.
It is not always obvious who caused the serious work injury. Typically, however, your employer is ultimately at fault and will have beached their duty of care. This means that your employer will be liable for the serious work injury claim that an employee makes, because they failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of their staff. These health and safety standards are imposed by statute, and if an employer fails to adhere to the regulated standards, they will need to pay compensation for their negligence.
Can My Colleague Be Held Liable For My Serious Work Injury Claim?
A serious work injury that has happened as a result of a mistake made by a work colleague can also be pursued in your serious work injury claim. You do not need to worry that your colleague may be liable to pay where they caused the accident. Due to a principle called vicarious liability, your employer will be liable for the negligence and actions of all their employees. This principle even extends to a situation where you suffer a serious work injury as a result of a prank pulled by a work colleague during the course of their employment. Your employer’s liability insurer will take over the claim and deal with the injury at work claim.
It is important to note that even if you have suffered a serious work injury because of an accident that was partly your fault, you may still be successful in a compensation claim. However, your serious work injury claim pay-out would be reduced by your proportion of responsibility. If you have any questions about whether or not you may institute a serious work injury claim, contact Free Legal Justice at any time of day, on any day of the week, by filling out the short online form and waiting for us to call you back for free, or by calling one of our friendly accident claims handlers on 0800 567 7074. If you would like to discuss your case from the comfort of your own home, please request a complimentary home visit from one of our friendly injury claims handlers today, so that you can start your serious work injury claim and get the justice you deserve.
Should I Make A Serious Work Injury Claim Against My Employer?
If you have been seriously injured in an accident at work that was not your fault, you should definitely look into making a serious work injury claim as compensation for the harm, pain and suffering you have endured. We understand that instituting a claim against your employer can be nerve-wrecking. We are also conscious that you may be concerned about the effect that a serious work injury claim will have on your employment status, or possibly the financial and reputational impact that a successful serious work injury claim will have on your employer.
Free Legal Justice is here to help you get the justice you deserve. You need not feel awkward or shy about making a serious work injury claim against your employer. If you have suffered any form of injury because of someone’s negligence or actions at work, we advise that you contact a legal professional immediately to discuss your potential personal injury claim. Not only do serious work injuries affect your health; they can also affect your personal relationships and have a major financial impact on your life. Your whole life could be changed, and your entire family could be affected as the result of one terrible event. The Free Legal Justice team is here to help you through this difficult period of your life.
If you are concerned about the possible financial consequences of a serious work injury claim for your employer or about your employment relationship if you make a serious work injury claim against your company, you need not be concerned any longer. All employers in the UK are required to take our employer’s liability insurance. When you make any work injury claim, your employer’s insurance company will take over the case on your employer’s behalf, and will pay any associated costs, including your compensation pay-out. Every employer is legally required to take out this employers’ liability insurance, to make sure that they are financially secure enough to pay compensation for work injury claims, without it affecting the economic position of the company.
In summary, you are legally entitled to claim financial compensation for wrongful injuries that you have suffered in the workplace, and you have a fundamental right to get justice for the harm that has been caused. Do not feel guilty about using your basic human rights! Our experienced personal injury claims team has dealt with these often sensitive situations countless times before. The Free Legal Justice team will deal with your serious work injury claim sensitively and discreetly, placing your privacy and security at the top of our priorities list. If you have any concerns or questions about making serious work injury claim, Free Legal Justice will be happy to provide the necessary support and discuss your options in a completely free consultation from the comfort of your home.
What Is The Process Of Making A Serious Work Injury Claim?
Before you make a serious work injury claim, we appreciate that you might have some questions about the claim process. For example, you might be concerned about making a claim against your employer, or you might feel overwhelmed by the thought of making a legal claim while you are still recovering from a serious illness or injury at work. This is perfectly understandable, and the Free Legal Justice team is here to answer any queries you might have, and support you through your recovery process.
Claiming against your employer for a serious work injury can be intimidating, but with the assistance from the legal experts Free Legal Justice, you can take a step back, rest and recover properly, and be sure that your serious work injury claim is being managed efficiently and diligently by your dedicated solicitor.
Free Legal Justice has been working with work injury claims for a long time. We know and appreciate that accidents, both minor and serious, can affect people in different ways. Our work injury claims solicitors take each case seriously and deal with every client on an individual basis, giving 100 percent effort to carefully guide your work injury claim to a successful conclusion, and help you to get the maximum compensation you deserve.
Types of Serious Work Injury Claims
Construction Accidents
The statistics show that the construction industry is one of the most hazardous sectors to work in. The majority of serious work injury claims in the United Kingdom are based on personal injuries suffered by employees in the construction industry. Serious work injuries can range from deep cuts and severed body parts due to sharp tools and equipment, crushing of limbs due to heavy loads, broken and bruised extremities because of defective or dangerous machinery, brain damage from falling objects, bone fractures because of blunt force trauma, and back or spinal cord injuries due to falls from a height.
Sadly, the construction industry is also one of the most common sectors for fatal accidents at work – severe accidents that result in the death of someone. The main cause of fatal injuries in Great Britain each year is a result of workers falling from a height on construction sites. Other fatal accidents include workers being trapped by something that has collapsed or overturned, and workers being struck by some form of moving vehicle or equipment.
If you work in the construction industry and have suffered a serious work injury, then get in touch with Free Legal Justice today to find out if you are eligible for a serious work injury claim. Free Legal Justice has a dedicated team dealing with personal injury claims, and we are available to discuss your claim 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for free and at no obligation to you. Our friendly claims team will give you an obligation-free assessment of the merits of your serious work injury claim, and if you decide to continue with a serious work injury claim, we will support you through every step of the process.
Slipping, Tripping and Falling
In general, slip accidents at work are caused by the presence of something smooth on the floor surface, for example slippery cleaning products, water or ice, some type of greasy food or sticky drinks. Trip accidents at work can be caused by any item being left lying around on the floor, by uneven floor surfaces, by obstructions in the path (such as potholes), cables lying on the ground, or by hidden or uneven steps. Causes and contributing factors to fall injuries could be anything from loose floor coverings, to losing footing on the stairs, to poor health and safety measures, to faulty equipment; or simply a worker rushing to get somewhere. The chance of someone slipping, tripping or falling at work is also increased when the lighting in the place of work is insufficient or where the obstructions have not been brought to the attention of employees through any warning signs or demarcation. Depending on how you fall, what you land on, and where you fall, you could suffer a serious work injury.
Manual Handling And Carrying Accidents
A manual handling job is any workplace task that requires an employee to transfer, lift, carry, move or support a load. Manual handling injuries in the workplace can be caused by both light and extremely heavy loads. The employees that are most likely to be at risk include care workers, manufacturing staff, agricultural workers and construction workers. It should be noted however, that any employee in any sort of workplace is at risk of a manual handling or carrying injury.
A large portion of the serious work injury claims that the Free Legal Justice team manage every day relate to serious work injuries caused by manual handling accidents. The majority of these cases are a direct result of employers failing to pay sufficient consideration to manual handling safety rules and processes. In many cases, lifting and carrying injuries could easily have been prevented had an employer complied with its duty of care, as well as its legal responsibility to adhere to the health and safety regulations. Common lifting and carrying accidents that result in serious work injuries are:
- individuals being required to manually handle excessive weight;
- employers failing to provide adequate training or refresher training to employees;
- Insufficient or infrequent risk assessments being carried out by employers;
- Failure of employers to provide suitable safety equipment to employees
- Failure of employers to provide a safe system of work or sufficient assistance and sufficient oversight for all individuals in the workplace
Falls From A Great Height
Falling from a great height at your place of work can extremely treacherous. Significant or even life-changing injuries can result from an individual falling from any height, and the entire experience can have a huge impact on the person’s physical and mental wellbeing. If you fall from a height there are countless serious injuries that you can suffer – you can break many bones, you could require amputation, you may become paralysed or suffer brain injury.
If you are an employee that has suffered a serious injury from a falling accident at work, Free Legal Justice is here for you. We have been helping clients for many years, and we know how hard it can be to recover and adjust from this traumatic experience. The physical injuries that you suffer from a falling accident at work don’t just affect your health and personal life- your serious work injuries could also have a financial impact on you and your family.
Being Struck By A Moving Object
An employee can suffer a serious work injury by forceful contact from a moving object, for example where something falls onto them or flies through the air and strikes them. This is a common way for employees to be injured in an accident at work, and one of the largest categories of reported serious work injury claims. Workers can suffer serious injury by heavy loads becoming dislodged and falling onto them, or if a sharp object were to fall onto some part of their body. Another common example is where an object becomes dislodged from a stack because of a moving vehicle, and falls on the worker standing nearby. In most accident at work claims of this nature, an employer will be held vicariously or directly liable for the employee’s injuries, and the amount of compensation that the employer will need to pay will depend on the severity of the injuries and harm suffered by the claimant because of a moving object.
Defective Equipment
All employers have a responsibility to check machinery and equipment regularly and make sure that it is in good and proper working order, and does not pose a hazard to any person who might need to use it. Equipment in this instance would include any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tools or installation used at work. When we say ‘use’, this refers to any activity that involves includes starting, stopping, maintaining, servicing, setting, moving, programming, repairing, modifying, and even cleaning the equipment.
If you are an employee that has been exposed to defective equipment that has caused you a serious work injury, you are most likely entitled to make an accident at work claim against your employer. Speak to Free Legal Justice today to find out how to make your serious work injury claim.
Our expert personal injury claims solicitors have successfully proven the negligence of hundreds of employers in serious work injury claims, resulting in maximum financial compensation and justice for many satisfied Free Legal Justice clients. The Free Legal Justice team is highly experienced in serious work injury claims, and our dedicated accident at work claims handlers are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help you to get your life back. Although finances might not be the most important thing on your mind after you’ve suffered a serious work injury, the compensation you could get through a successful claim may make the journey towards recovery a bit easier- in all aspects of your life.
What Is The Value Of My Serious Work Injury Claim?
Your legal right to compensation is based on getting you back to the position you were in before you experienced a serious work injury. In serious work injury claims generally, compensation sums are calculated with reference to the severity of the injury suffered at work, and the type of care that the victim may need going forward to be able to live with their injuries. We will also include a claim for out-of-pocket expenses that you have incurred as a result of the accident.
Serious work injury claims include amounts for general and special damages. In summary, general damages are compensation for the physical injuries, whereas special damages are compensation for additional expenses incurred due to the work injury. A member of the Free Legal Justice claims team will be sure to go through your calculation of general and special damages with you in detail once you’ve agreed to make a serious work injury claim.
There are specific rules of how to calculate general damages, based on different levels of harm experienced in serious work injury claims. Your general damages will be calculated by matching your independent medical report with the sums given in the official Judicial Board Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases. The compensation that you will receive at the conclusion of your serious work injury claim will be influenced by details such as the severity and permanence of your injury, how it impacts your life, how long you will take to recover from your injuries.
You will need to provide the court with proof of all of those additional expenses or costs you have incurred to date, or will incur in the future, as a result of the serious work injury. These costs will be included in the broad category of special damages. Special damages can range from travel costs, costs of medical and rehabilitation appointments, childcare, loss of income, and broader medical expenses such as prescriptions, physiotherapy, counselling, physical home adjustments, to the cost of any special equipment that you might need during the recovery process.
To give you a very broad idea of what amounts can be claimed for the different types of work injury claims, we have compiled a table below based on the average compensation serious work injury claims.
| Extremely serious head injury | Victims are unresponsive as a result of severe brain damage and may be in a vegetative state | Between £240 000 and £345 000 |
| Serious head injury | Severe disability due to brain damage, loss of feeling in limbs, personality change and/or a mental disability | Between £180 000 and £240 000 |
| Extremely serious facial injury | Facial disfigurement; severe scarring or burns | Between £25 400 and £83 000 |
| Moderate to serious facial injury | Simple fractures to multiple fractures and breaks in the facial area | Between £7 500 and £41 000 |
| Most extreme eye injury | Completely blind and deaf | Around £340 000 |
| Extremely serious eye injury | Partial to substantial loss of sight in one or both eyes | Between £45 000 and £230 000 |
| Very serious nose injury | Severe/multiple fractures to the nose resulting in permanent damage | Between £9000 and £19500 |
| Serious nose injury | Severe injuries capable of recovery after surgery | Between £3370 and £4350 |
| Extremely serious ear Injury | Complete loss of hearing | Between £77 000 and £93 000 |
| Serious ear injury | Complete hearing loss in one of the ears | Between £26000 and £38 000 |
| Serious shoulder injury | Paralysis, limb numbness, restriction in movement because of the injury in the neck and shoulder | Between £10 500 and £42 000 |
| Serious back injury | Severe injury to the upper or lower back; paralysis or any relating issues to organs in the lower parts of the body | Between £33 000 and £137 000 |
| Extremely serious arm injury | Amputation of both arms, the amputation of a single arm, or partial amputation of one or both arms | Between £82 000 and £255 900 |
| Serious arm injury | For major restriction and disability present in one or both the arms | Between £33 400 and £111 600 |
| Extremely serious hand injury | Amputation of one or both hands; loss of use of hands | Between £120 000 and £171 900 |
| Serious hand injury | Total or effective loss of one hand from crushing and then amputation partial amputation | Between £52800 and £77 400 |
| Extremely serious leg injury | Amputation of one or both legs(full or partial amputation) | Between £83 500 and £240 500 |
| Serious leg injury | Injuries to the leg which has caused lifelong restriction in movement and disability | Between £23 600 and £82 100 |
| Serious knee injury | Disability because of a knee injury, major damage to muscles, muscle wastage and soft tissue damage. Disability because of a knee injury, major damage to muscles, muscle wastage and soft tissue damage | Between £22 300 and £82 000 |
| Extremely serious ankle injury | The most severe ankle injuries that may cause deformity, degeneration of joints, and potentially amputation | Between £42 500 and £59 400 |
| Extremely serious foot injury | Amputation of one or both feet | Between £71 600 and £171 900 |
Your experienced personal injury claims solicitor will be able to give you an estimate of the value of your serious work injury claim once you have provided them with all the details of the incident, and any medical reports about the injuries that resulted from the accident at work. It is important to note however that we won’t be able to give you a 100% accurate predication of your claim’s value. This will be determined by the judge or the settlement agreement. The amounts mentioned above are merely to be used as a broad guideline to possible compensation in claims of this nature, and must not be seen in any way to be fixed compensation amounts available to serious work injury victims.
How Much Will It Cost To Make A Serious Work Injury Claim?
Free Legal Justice conducts all of its work injury claims on a No Win No Fee basis. This means that clients will not pay Free Legal Justice a thing unless we help them to win their claim. Free Legal Justice will carry all the upfront costs needed to proceed with your serious work injury claim, meaning that you will only be charged when you get the result and compensation you deserve. No Win No Fee agreements are a great funding option to allow all those with valid grounds for serious work injury claims to pursue litigation, without the risk of being left out of pocket.
No Win No Fee Agreements With Free Legal Justice
A No Win No Fee agreement with Free Legal Justice allows you to continue with a compensation claim on the condition that if the claim is not a success, you won’t owe your legal team any money. Put simply, it is a way for you to take legal steps necessary to get justice for the serious injuries that you have suffered at work, without the financial risk of litigation weighing over you. Our team of solicitors are happy to offer No Win No Fee agreements to clients seeking rightful compensation in serious work injury claims, because they are confident in their legal abilities and they have a track record of successful claims behind them.
A No Win No Fee agreement is a financially-savvy way for all kinds of employees to claim compensation for personal injuries and other damages caused as a result of accidents. Once you have been over the details of your incident with the Free Legal Justice team, and given one of our expert solicitors the go-ahead to continue with your serious work injury claim on a No Win No Fee basis, your role is essentially finished. You can then sit back, relax, and let your dedicated compensation claims team do the rest of the difficult work for you!
How Much Will I Pay In Legal Fees If My Serious Work Injury Claim Is Successful?
If you enter into a No Win No Fee Agreement with us, you will not pay Free Legal Justice any legal fees in advance. A No Win No Fee agreement means that we only get paid at the end of the day, once your claim is successful.
Our solicitors work on an average success fee of 25% of the total compensation received. Your assigned solicitor will make sure to discuss the success fee upfront, and this amount will be agreed in writing before you proceed with your serious work injury claim. If Free Legal Justice helps you to win your case, we will receive the success fee as payment for the legal services that we have provided during the claims process. Your friendly solicitor will be able to answer any other questions that you might have in relation to the success fee.
Contact Free Legal Justice today for a free, no obligations discussion about your serious work injury claim. A member of our team will be able to estimate the value and merits of your case once they have been through the details of the incident with you. The sooner you get started on your serious work injury claim, the sooner we can get you the justice you deserve.
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