Serious Spine Injury Claims – How To Claim Compensation

This guide discusses serious spine injury claims and how you could seek compensation if an accident caused by third-party negligence led to you suffering a severe spinal injury.

Serious damage to the spine can significantly restrict movement and cause lasting pain or disability. You could have the right to claim compensation for this damage if you have valid grounds. This guide will explore the conditions that must be met for a claim to be made against a third party whose actions or inaction have led to an accident causing your physical and mental harm.

Later in the guide, we will also look at compensation guideline figures, as well as the evidence that can help a case go ahead.

Finally, you can learn how our No Win No Fee solicitors could make the claiming process run smoothly if you have a case they can take on.

You can talk to our advisors about serious injury compensation claims at a time that suits you, with the option of a free assessment telling you if you are likely to have an eligible claim. To reach the team today, you can:

Man pointing to an x-ray of a serious spine injury

Select A Section

  1. Determining Eligibility For Serious Spine Injury Claims
  2. Establishing The Validity Of Serious Spine Injury Claims
  3. Example Settlements For Serious Spine Injury Cases
  4. No Win No Fee Options For Serious Injury Claims

Determining Eligibility For Serious Spine Injury Claims

Serious spine injury claims must meet the eligibility criteria all personal injury claims are measured against. You must show that:

  • Another party owed you a duty of care;
  • They breached that duty; and
  • The breach caused an accident which led to your physical and/or mental harm.

These elements form the basis of negligence in a claim. Depending on where an accident happened, the third party whose negligence you seek to establish could be a road user, an employer or someone controlling a public space.

Eligibility Criteria For Serious Road Accident Claims

Road users must follow the rules of the road, as shown in the Highway Code and the Road Traffic Act 1988. As a road user, you have a duty of care to navigate roads in a way that keeps yourself and others safe from harm. Other road users owe you that same duty, and a breach of duty can lead to a serious road traffic accident.

Example: A lorry driver is looking at their phone and turns the wrong way into a one-way street. They cause a head-on collision with a car, leading to its driver suffering severe spinal fractures.

Eligibility Criteria For Serious Work Accident Claims

An accident at work could result from an employer’s breached duty of care if they do not take reasonably practicable action to protect employees from harm. This duty is set by Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Serious spine injury claims could be made against employers who do not take preventative steps like performing a risk assessment, training employees or providing PPE if it leads to an injury suffered in an accident at work.

Example: An employer orders a worker to use a forklift without any training or prior experience. The employee cannot control the forklift and has an accident where they suffer significant back damage leading to paralysis.

Eligibility Criteria For Serious Public Accident Claims

When you visit a public space, the person or group controlling that space has a duty of care to keep you reasonably safe. This duty is assigned to them by the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. An occupier’s failure to uphold their duty could place visitors at risk of a public place accident.

Example: A customer slips and falls on a wet floor in a shop, suffering major cervical spine damage. No wet floor signs were displayed by the shop, and no steps were taken to make the floor less slippery.

Time Limits for Filing a Serious Spine Injury Claim

You must start a personal injury claim within three years of the accident that caused your injuries. This is the general time frame set out by The Limitation Act 1980.

There are only particular cases in which serious spine injury claims might have different limitations. One is if the injured person is under 18. In that case, their limitation period runs from their 18th birthday to their 21st. Before they turn 18, their time limit is paused. It is, however, possible for a court-appointed litigation friend to start a claim on their behalf while the pause is in effect.

A litigation friend can also step in during the indefinite pause afforded to people without the mental capacity to present a case. Should the person recover without this intervention, they would have three years from their recovery date to begin a compensation claim.

Our advisors can clear up any uncertainties you might have about your time limit. Please call if you have any questions about this or anything else regarding your potential serious injury claim.

Establishing The Validity Of Serious Spine Injury Claims

Serious spine injury claims benefit from claimants presenting clear and relevant evidence of a third party’s breached duty of care. You can look to show a breach, as well as the extent of your spinal injuries, by collecting:

  • Official records; for example, a workplace accident book entry.
  • Photographs of the accident scene.
  • Footage of the incident, whether from CCTV or a personal device like a dashcam.
  • Medical records, which you can get during or after treatment.
  • A diary covering your symptoms and treatment.
  • Witness contact details.

Our solicitors can help you gather evidence and witness information to make preparing and presenting proof easier. Please get in touch with our advisors if you would like to know more about the support our solicitors can give you if they take on your case.

Example Settlements For Serious Spine Injury Cases nn

You could seek special damages as part of your claim. This is a potential head of claim in a personal injury settlement which compensates for financial losses due to injuries. You would need to give proof such as payslips or bank statements, but you could pursue compensation for the likes of:

Special damages can only be awarded as part of a settlement that already features general damages, the head of claim compensating for physical and psychological injuries.

We have assembled the table below using guideline figures from the Judicial College Guidelines, a document often referred to along with medical evidence by legal professionals when valuing injuries during a claim.

The table should only be used as a guide, however. Serious spine injury claims will often end in different settlements because of the individual nature of each case.

Compensation table

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INJURY COMPENSATION NOTES
More Than One Injury – Serious Up to £1,000,000+ Serious injuries of different types to the body, and financial losses both past and future.
Paralysis £324,600 to £403,990 A diagnosis is given for tetraplegia, otherwise called quadriplegia.
Paralysis £219,070 to £284,260 Paralysis of the lower body, or paraplegia.
Back Injury – Severe (i) £91,090 to £160,980 The most severe back injuries, typically involving spinal cord and nerve root damage.
Neck Injury – Severe (i) In the region of £148,330 Because of the injury’s severity, the injured person may have little or no neck movement in spite of constantly wearing a neck collar.
Neck Injury – Severe (ii) £65,740 to £130,930 This bracket often contains injuries involving cervical spinal disc damage or serious fractures.
Loss of earnings Up to £100,000 and above You could claim for lost earnings if you missed work, or the opportunity to work, because of a temporary or permanent absence due to injury.

No Win No Fee Options For Serious Injury Claims

Severe spinal injuries often require a lengthy recovery period, so you could find it beneficial to seek the expert guidance of a personal injury solicitor. Our solicitors can stay on top of your case, ensuring it is submitted within the time limit and keeping you informed throughout the process. They can call on their experience in presenting serious spine injury claims to give you the best possible support.

If a solicitor considers your claim valid, this dedicated service could be offered under a No Win No Fee contract called a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA).

A CFA is often a financial relief for claimants because it means paying no solicitor fees:

  • Upfront;
  • During the claim;
  • At all, in a losing claim.

Your solicitor would take a success fee if the claim wins. This would be a percentage of the compensation awarded to you, which has a legal cap applied by The Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013.

Get In Contact With Our Team

You can speak to our advisors today and get a free consultation, including answers to any questions you have. An advisor can then assess your situation and put you through to one of our experienced solicitors if you have grounds to start a compensation claim.

There are no obligations, and our advisors are here to help, so please do not hesitate to:

Discover More Serious Injury Claim Resources

We have more guides that could help you, including the below:

Here are some further handy resources:

Thank you for reading about serious spine injury claims in our guide. Our advisors are available and ready to help if there is anything you would like to discuss.