Life changing compensation after car accident ends career

Charles Ewing was seriously injured on his way to work one morning when another driver travelling in the opposite direction cut in front of Charles’ car to reach a petrol station on the A71, causing a head-on collision.

Charles was in an induced coma and needed multiple surgeries after the accident. He has been left with life-long injuries to his left wrist and bowels which has had a massive impact on his life after the accident.

Accident ends career

Before the accident, Charles worked as a prison officer at Addiewell prison for over 6 years and had also begun his own part-time business which he had been running for over a year.

“The accident was quite life-changing to be honest. It cost me to lose my job and give up my boot camp training business. I had also started going to Stirling University to learn sports coaching but I had to give that all up.”

“Financially everything changed dramatically”

Due to the accident, Charles was declared unfit to work and now needs to state his medical conditions on future applications which he was concerned would impact on his employability.

“After I lost my job I was lucky enough to find another job quite quickly but it was a significant loss of wages.”

Luckily, Charles was able to secure employment at the airport as a baggage handler. However, this was a significant loss of income and it soon became clear that his injuries from the accident meant he wasn’t physically able to do the job.

Thankfully, he got another job in the security department which wasn’t as physically demanding.

“Never get the life back I had before the accident”

“It is still upsetting what happened. It is a period of my life I will never get back and I’ll never be able to fulfil the ambitions I had at the time.

“Before the accident, I was chasing a promotion at work and was running my own business. I’m confident I would have been successful at both but now I will never know if I would’ve really achieved them as it was taken away from me abruptly.

“My contract was terminated against my will. It was because of the stupidity of someone in a moment of madness.

“I’ll never know why the other driver made the decision they did that day.”

Help with Digby Brown

Charles decided to get in touch with Digby Brown and Mairi Day, Partner in our Edinburgh office, pursued the car injury claim on his behalf.

“It all took off when I got in touch with Digby Brown and I left everything in Mairi’s hands. It helped having someone believe it wasn’t my fault and I did nothing wrong to cause the accident, and believed enough in you to take a case forward.”

Prove loss of income due to injuries

In Charles’s case, there were two difficult issues. First, proving a loss of promotion and second, the proving potential loss of income from the boot camp business.

Our personal injury legal team had to determine what the loss of promotion and future earnings would have been if Charles had been promoted to a more senior prison custody officer. They also had to investigate the loss of income Charles had sustained as a result of him having to give up his boot camp business.

Our lawyers sought input from, instructed and consulted with small business and employment experts to prove losses. They also had to determine the impact of Charles’s injuries on his life and career in the future by instructing expert medical evidence from orthopaedic, GI and psychiatric medical experts.

Final compensation more than three times the first offer

The insurer’s solicitors put forward an offer of compensation amounting to £66,000. Considering the losses Charles had endured, our lawyers advised Charles to reject the offer and pursue the claim in court.

“I talked about the first offer with Mairi and she advised I was entitled to more. At the point of taking the case to court, they started to take it more seriously and I can’t believe the difference from the first offer.”

In the end, Charles was awarded £220,000 in compensation – over three times the initial offer!

“I’m extremely happy with the compensation – it’s really a life changing amount of money for my family and my children in the future.”

“My advice would be to stick with the claim”

“My advice would be to stick with it. There were times we were stressed and tired as we didn’t truly understand or appreciate the process and the final picture we were working towards.

“However, there is a positive at the end and everything our lawyers did was a piece of a bigger picture. Now having gone through the process, I can tell others to be patient, it will be worth it.

“I’m very pleased we stuck with it and we had faith in the legal team at Digby Brown. They were top notch and I would happily recommend Digby Brown and Mairi as an individual to anyone.”