Accident at Work

Just to illustrate the significance of instructing the right firm of solicitors in a situation like this. When the previous solicitors submitted this claim as a low value claim, the defendant’s insurer made an offer to settle the whole of the claim for £5,500! This is less than 5% of the actual settlement we achieved for the client. Fortunately for our client he instructed us to take over the claim and we of course advised him to reject that offer. But one can only imagine what could have happened if he stayed with his previous solicitors.

Eventually, the Defendants liaised and agreed to negotiate, in order to reduce the legal costs of the ongoing litigation. The Claimant has received an out of court settlement, which will enable him to arrange surgery for his knee on a private basis. The settlement will also compensate for his future loss of earnings, medical and travel expenses and the care and assistance that he received from his family. The compensation that he received includes a component compensating him for the disadvantage on the open labour market, as his injury reduces his opportunities on the job market.

In this case, our client was fortunate not to suffer more serious injuries. The case study section of our website is full of these cases, some of which involved such serious injuries that settlements between hundreds of thousands of pounds and millions of pounds were awarded.

Liability was denied, our client was blamed for causing the accident himself. Proceedings were issued in the High Court and soon after that, the employer’s offered a settlement which was agreed. The settlement will enable the Claimant to have treatment and cosmetic prosthetics to cover up his disfigured hand.

Levenes will always fight to claim the highest compensation possible. We were not impressed with the Defendant’s arguments and one step at a time, we took them down.

If you are injured in an accident at work where there is more than one potential defendant, we will always look carefully at who may be to blame. Joanna commenting on the case said “It can be a challenge when there is more than one defendant, but by focussing on securing the best outcome for the client, we were able to conclude a good settlement for our client”.

The Defendant’s solicitors threatened to make an application to the court for permission to resile from their admission of liability. We took the view that this was not a case in which new evidence come to light in a way which would make it unjust to hold the Defendant to their admission of liability. We rebutted every allegation the Defendant tried. The defendant had settled the claim for £125,000 in order to avoid the impact of our mighty power at court.

In this claim, the Defendant admitted liability within 3 months of our letter of claim. Thanks to our well established connections with the best medical experts in the UK we were able to obtain a medico-legal report from a hand surgeon for our client within a month after the liability admission.

Our client was working in a care home. He blew the whistle when he saw one of his co-workers mistreating a resident in the home. Having reported the incident, his manager assured him that action would be taken and that his report would remain confidential. This employee then began behaving aggressively towards our client and then eventually, he punched him in the face.