What Could Your Serious Back Injury Claim Be Worth?

This guide discusses how your serious back injury claim could be assigned a value and what could be included in your settlement if you’re successful. Following this, we explore the eligibility criteria you must satisfy to obtain personal injury compensation and how long you have to do so.

serious back injury claim

What Could Your Serious Back Injury Claim Be Worth?

Additionally, we discuss the third parties who have a responsibility with regard to your health, safety and well being, including road users, employers and occupiers. We also discuss the ways an accident causing a back injury could occur if this duty is breached.

This guide then looks at how evidence could be useful to support your back injury claim and the pieces you might want to gather.

Finally, this guide outlines the benefits of making a serious injury claim using a No Win No Fee solicitor.

To discuss the validity of your claim, contact our team of advisors for a free consultation. You can do so by:

  • Calling on 020 3870 4868
  • Filling in our form to enquire about your claim online
  • Speaking with an advisor using the live chat feature on our website

Select A Section

  1. Examples Of Settlements For Serious Back Injuries
  2. Serious Back Injury Claim – Eligibility Criteria
  3. How Long After A Suffering A Serious Injury Could You Claim?
  4. What Evidence Could Help Prove Your Serious Back Injury Claim?
  5. Can You Claim With A No Win No Fee Serious Injury Solicitor?

Examples Of Settlements For Serious Back Injuries

If you make a serious back injury claim and succeed, your settlement could include up to two heads of claim. General damages are the first, compensating you for the suffering and pain caused by your injuries. The amount you could receive would depend on factors such as:

  • Your injuries severity
  • The time it takes you to recover
  • Any loss of enjoyment you’ve experienced

Additionally, a publication called the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) can be used to help calculate the potential value of your injuries. This document provides guideline award brackets for different injuries. Your medical records can also be used alongside the JCG.

Below is a table of figures taken from the JCG. Please note this is not a guarantee of the compensation you could receive, as each case is different.

Compensation Table

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Injury Severity Compensation Notes
Multiple Injuries Serious Up to £1,000,000+ Compensation for serious multiple injuries alongside financial losses incurred due to your injuries.
Paralysis Quadriplegia £324,600 to £403,990 Paralysis from the neck down.
Paraplegia £219,070 to £284,260 Paralysis to the lower body.
Back Severe (i) £91,090 to £160,980 Spinal cord and nerve root damage causing a variety of serious effects, such as paralysis that is incomplete with severe pain and disability.
Neck Severe (i) In the region of £148,330 Incomplete paraplegia or permanent spastic quadriparesis.
Severe (ii) £65,740 to £130,930 Serious fractures or cervical spine disc damage causing considerably severe disabilities.
Special Damages Loss of Earnings Up to £100,000 and above Compensation to reimburse any lost income incurred due to temporary or permanent time taken off work to recover from your injuries.

Special Damages

Special damages are the second head of claim, which compensates you for any reasonable past and future losses you incur due to your injuries. This can include:

  • Loss of income
  • Medical costs
  • Travel expenses
  • Care costs

You should keep any evidence to ensure you receive compensation to reimburse any losses, such as wage slips, invoices and receipts.

Contact our team of advisors to discuss the potential compensation you could be awarded following a successful serious back injury claim.

Serious Back Injury Claim – Eligibility Criteria

To make a serious back injury claim, you must be able to satisfy the following eligibility criteria:

  • A duty of care was owed by a third party.
  • This duty of care was breached.
  • The breach caused you to sustain harm.

The three points above form the basis of negligence in personal injury claims, and must be found to have occurred in order for you to have valid grounds to seek compensation.

Below, we will discuss the duty of care owed to you in different circumstances and how a breach of this duty could occur leading to an accident causing a serious back injury.

Am I Eligible To Seek Compensation For An Accident At Work?

Your employer owes you a duty of care to take reasonable and practicable steps to prevent you from experiencing harm at work. This is laid out in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. If they breach this duty of care, it could lead to you sustaining a serious back injury. For example:

  • Your employer fails to provide you with any training before instructing you to operate a forklift truck. As a result, you lose control of the work vehicle and crash. This causes you to sustain a fracture to your spine.

Can I Claim For A Public Accident?

Parties in control of a space must take steps to ensure the reasonable safety of visitors. This is their duty of care as per the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. If you’re injured because an occupier failed to adhere to the duty of care they owed, you could sustain a serious injury to your back. For example:

  • Despite several reports being made about a faulty handrail in a restaurant stairwell, no steps are taken to fix it or reduce the risk of it causing harm. As a result, you fall down the stairs due to the broken handrail and sustain damage to the discs in your back.

Am I Eligible To Claim For A Serious Back Injury On The Road?

Road users must act in a way so as to prevent injury and damage to themselves and others when navigating the roads. This is their duty of care which they must uphold by following the rules in the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code. If they fail to do so, it could mean you sustain a back injury of a serious nature in a road traffic accident. For example:

  • When driving on a motorway, a lorry driver fails to check their mirrors before changing lanes. As a result, they collide with your car causing you to sustain spinal cord damage which leads to paralysis.

To discuss your eligibility to make a serious back injury claim following an accident on the road, at work, or in public, please contact an advisor on the number above.

How Long After A Suffering A Serious Injury Could You Claim?

In addition to the eligibility criteria listed above, you must adhere to the time limits in the Limitation Act 1980. Generally, you have three years to start your personal injury claim from the incident date. There are some exceptions that could apply, however.

For example, if someone lacks the mental capacity to act alone, the time limit would be paused indefinitely. A litigation friend could be appointed by the courts to act for them during this time. Yet, if someone gained the capacity to act alone, and no case had already started, the three-year limit would begin from the recovery date.

Furthermore, if someone under 18 is injured, they wouldn’t be able to act for themselves. The courts could again appoint a litigation friend, with the time limit being paused until the child turns 18. Alternatively, the individual could act for themselves when they turned 18, where they would have three years to begin their personal injury claim.

Contact our team of advisors now to learn more about the time limits and any exceptions that could potentially apply to your serious back injury claim.

What Evidence Could Help Prove Your Serious Back Injury Claim?

Evidence could help support your serious back injury compensation claim, as it could prove that third-party negligence occurred and highlight how you were affected. As such, you may benefit from collecting the following pieces of evidence:

A solicitor from our panel could help you gather evidence as part of the service they offer, if your case is eligible. To assess the validity of your serious injury claim, contact our team of advisors now.

Can You Claim With A No Win No Fee Serious Injury Solicitor?

You may wish to consider instructing a solicitor to represent your serious back injury claim on a No Win No Fee basis. The solicitors from our panel can provide their services in this way by offering a Conditional Fee Agreement. This typically means the following:

  • Upfront fees aren’t required to begin instruction.
  • Ongoing costs don’t need to be paid for your solicitor’s work.
  • If your case is successful, a solicitor will take a success fee from your compensation. This is a percentage which has a legal cap applied to it by the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013.
  • If your case doesn’t succeed, you won’t have to pay a success fee.

Talk To Our Team

To find out whether you could be eligible to make a serious back injury claim and have a solicitor from our panel represent it on a No Win No Fee basis, contact an advisor. You can do so by:

  • Calling on 020 3870 4868
  • Filling in our form to enquire about your claim online
  • Speaking with an advisor using the live chat feature on our website

Further Guidance On Dealing With Serious Injuries

For more of our helpful articles, please look here:

For some external resources, please look below:

Thank you for reading our guide on when you could make a serious back injury claim. If you have any other questions, please contact an advisor on the number above.

Writer LE

Checked by AC