FAQs

Firstly, you must establish liability and prove that someone else was negligent and that the negligence caused both your injuries and other losses.  Negligence is a failure to take reasonable care to avoid acts and omissions which would be likely to cause injury and which causes injury.

We would recommend making your claim at the earliest opportunity, as the law within the United Kingdom only allows an adult three years from the date of the accident or injury for a claim to be made. If the claim was to be brought outside of this time limit, you may have lost your legal right to bring a claim for compensation. If you have an accident before you reach 18 years of age, you have 3 years from your 18th birthday in which to bring Court proceedings for the claim.

Your Solicitor will discuss the most appropriate form of funding with you to ensure that the amount you pay, if anything, towards your legal costs and disbursements is kept to a minimum (see "Funding Options" for more details).

The claim will be made against the person or body who you believe was to blame for the negligent act or omission which led to the injury you sustained.

At this stage, simply complete the online claim form or call one of our help team on 0800 612 9609 to discuss the circumstances surrounding your injury. If more information is required, your Solicitor will contact you at a later stage for any missing or required detail.

To prove your claim, it must be shown that the injuries you suffered were the result of another person’s or body’s negligence.

The first step of the process is to complete the online claim form or discuss your concerns with one of our dedicated call team on 0800 612 9609.   We will be able to obtain details of any hospital or GP appointments you have attended at a later stage. As specialists acting on your behalf, you can be confident in our expertise in proving that the accident or injury you sustained was not your fault.

The opinion of a medical expert can be key in determining the nature and extent of the injury you have sustained, together with any future difficulties you may face. As a result, a medical examination is usually necessary to ascertain your full entitlement to compensation and, in some cases, prove liability itself.

It is rare that a face-to-face appointment is required in a simple claim, as usually everything can be done by letter, telephone or via e-mail. For more complicated cases we will need to meet you and with more serious injuries we can arrange home visits.

Everybody wants a quick resolution to their accident claim. The length of time taken to complete each case, however, will depend on the individual and their recovery. It is not always prudent to complete cases quickly, particularly with more serious accidents, as the recovery period should first be completed so that the full extent of the injury can be determined. This will ensure that the fairest compensation figure can be agreed.

We at Donns LLP pay compensation in full with absolutely no deductions and our ‘No Win - No Fee’ scheme is guaranteed to be completely risk free.

Everyone who wishes to make a claim against another party is under a duty to mitigate his losses.  This means that all losses and expenses resulting from the accident must be kept to a minimum. 

We will need to ascertain the degree of injury you have suffered.  To illustrate the extent of your injuries, we would have to support your claim with evidence from a medical expert.  Your “general damages” for pain, suffering and loss of amenity (i.e. way of life) will be assessed upon the medical evidence we obtain. 

Accident compensation is usually separated into four parts; special damages, general damages, future loss and interest.

Special Damages
These are details of your financial losses and expenses which can be calculated reasonably accurately and include loss of salary both past and future, travelling expenses, cost of medical treatment and medicines, personal effects damaged in the accident, and the excess on an insurance policy.  Proof of these losses is usually required by the production of receipts, however, if this is not possible estimates of loss can often be made and verified by other documentary evidence.

General Damages
This primarily covers items which cannot be calculated precisely.  This includes ascertaining the degree of injury you have suffered including pain and suffering.  Damages for pain and suffering are normally supported with evidence from a medical expert.

Future Losses
Here the calculations are complex and focus on losses that are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, then a special calculation is applied to the estimated annual loss to arrive at a fair figure for compensation.

Interest
You may be entitled to interest on some or part of your accident compensation. 

You will be entitled to compensation if it is proven that another party was wholly or partly to blame for the injuries you sustained from the accident.

It may well be helpful in your claim if there is witness evidence available to corroborate your version of the events leading up to the accident. In some cases, however, there may be less reliance on such information, particularly with Clinical Negligence claims, as the main focus will be on the medical notes and the independent opinions of medical experts.

Although doctor’s reports are helpful additions to claims, it is not one of our general requirements as in most cases we instruct a medical expert to provide their independent opinion. Therefore, you should not refrain from making a claim if you do not have a doctor’s report to provide.

In order to process the claim, we will need an accurate description of the circumstances, together with the date that the accident occurred, plus a description of the nature of injuries suffered.

The standard time limit for making a claim in the United Kingdom is three years either from the date of the accident or from the date that you knew that your injury was linked to the original accident or exposure, which is known as the date of knowledge. If legal proceedings are not started in court within this three year timescale, the case may well be ‘time-barred’ or statute barred, which means that the individual may no longer have a claim for compensation.

There are exceptions to this rule, particularly for children or patients being treated under the Mental Health Act 1983. The time limit does not begin for these people until the legal incapacity is removed; for a child this implies 3 years from the date of their 18th birthday and in the case of a patient treated under the Mental Health Act 1983, the three year deadline would begin from the date they were discharged as a patient. For fatal accidents, the time limit expires three years from the date of the person’s death.

Regardless of whether the accident was caused totally, or in part, by the fault of another person, you may have a claim.

The size of your total compensation award will be dependant on the nature and severity of the injury you have suffered. We may be able to advise you of compensation amounts we have achieved for similar cases as a good estimate of your final compensation figure.

In every successful case, general damages are awarded for the pain and suffering from the injury, the calculation of which is described within the Judicial Board Study Guidelines and other reported cases. The cost of medical expenses, loss of earnings, care, transport, occupational therapy, rehabilitation, counselling, physiotherapy and any other relevant expense will also be covered, where appropriate.

It will be imperative for us to determine who the alleged negligent party was, as in order to bring a successful claim we will need to show that your injury was due to that person’s negligence or omission. If you are unsure about the person or body who may be liable for your injury, call our team who will be able to discuss this aspect of your claim in more detail.

This will depend on how complicated your case is. Most cases are settled in approximately 9-12 months, but more serious accidents and injuries will require a longer time to resolve.

To make an enquiry, simply call our dedicated telephone helpline on 0800 612 9609 or alternatively complete and submit the online claim form. We will then assess the merits of your claim and advise you on the most suitable route for your case.

Complete the claim form online or call one of our dedicated help team on 0800 612 9609 so that your claim for compensation can commence.

We will determine the most suitable form of case funding available to you so that the amount you pay, if anything at all, will be kept to a minimum. One of our team will be happy to discuss your claim and funding options with you, or alternatively you can read the ‘Funding Options’ section of our website.

In some circumstances, such as with a Legal Aid award, a financial contribution may be required from you. In many cases, however, alternate funding options are available which may mean that you do not need to pay any legal fees. The options available include ‘No Win – No Fee’ arrangements, Legal Expenses cover (if you have this), ‘After the Event’ insurance cover or a full Legal Aid award (if applicable). For full details of all the options, please read our funding options section.

The ongoing case costs will be incorporated within the funding option which is suitable to you, and for the majority, this will mean no payments from you are necessary.

If Legal Expenses or ‘After the Event’ insurance is available, the ongoing cost of your claim will be sought from your insurance company. With Public Funded cases, our ongoing case costs will be covered by the Legal Services Commission, the body who decide on any Legal Aid awards. As in all cases, ‘No Win – No Fee’ case costs will be sought from the defendant if a successful outcome is achieved.

No fees will be due from you regardless of the funding option selected for your claim.

For cases funded through Legal Expenses and ‘After the Event’ insurance, our costs will already be covered and no fees will be charged. Our costs will equally have been covered within any Legal Aid award. For ‘No Win – No Fee’ cases, we will not be able to recover any costs from you under the terms of the agreement.

The only exception to this rule is if you decide to fund your case privately.

No. If we take on your claim it will be within one of the arrangements described in our ‘Funding Options’ section.

Usually no; in the event of your claim being unsuccessful you will not have to pay the defendant’s legal costs, but there are occasionally times when there may be a risk that you would have to. We will advise you in these rare circumstances.

“No win  - No fee” agreements (more correctly known as “Conditional Fee Agreements”) have been allowed since 1995, intended to lessen the burden on the public purse as Legal Aid was withdrawn from most personal injury claims.  The basis of Conditional Fee Agreements is that the solicitor is only entitled to be paid his legal fee if he wins the case and that payment is sought from the losers or their insurance company and therefore does not come out of any compensation award.  If the solicitor is unsuccessful and loses the case he will be unable to claim his fees from either the third party or his own client and therefore is not paid anything in a losing case. If a case is lost, a claimant may be liable for an opponents legal costs so ‘after-the-event’ insurance is recommended to protect against the costs of losing legal proceedings.

This is a type of legal expenses insurance which can be taken out following an accident or injury to insure against the costs of losing legal proceedings. This form of insurance covers the legal costs incurred during the claim including attending court and paying the other side’s legal bill. It may cover all your own costs but normally just the expenses incurred by your solicitor when it accompanies a Conditional Fee Agreement.

Few personal injury compensation claims will result in Court proceedings due to the sharp increase in the legal costs, which would be payable by the defendant if the allegations were proven.

Therefore, if the person responsible for the accident does not dispute their liability for the accident or the level of injuries sustained, out of Court settlements will be arranged to avoid the payment of any increased legal bills.

In some cases, however, a Court attendance may be required to resolve any dispute. Be assured that your Solicitor will talk you through the whole process to ensure you are comfortable with any decision to issue Court proceedings long before any Court date is set.

Most cases will not require the face-to-face meeting of a client with their Solicitor, as all of the information will be gathered either verbally or by letter. In more complicated or severe cases we may wish to arrange an appointment, which can either be at our office or, if required, at your home.

Firstly you should either complete the online claim form or contact us on 0800 612 9609 to discuss the specifics of your case. Your details will then be passed to one of our team for assessment who will then contact you to outline the next steps for your case.

Personal injury claims require an experienced and knowledgeable personal injury solicitor who understands the issues and complexities surrounding the circumstances of your claim.  We are an independent firm of specialist solicitors with over 35 years knowledge and experience in the personal injury market. 

Rehabilitation is the process of recovery for the injury you have sustained. We can instruct a Case Manager to supervise the rehabilitation process for more serious accidents and injuries, if we feel this is an appropriate measure to take.

A Case Manager is a medical professional who can coordinate and manage patient care both in hospital and at home, whilst ensuring provisions are made for long-term care, rehabilitation and mental health.