Six times the original offer for injured worker

Our client suffered an accident at work causing a serious injury to his right hand. A knife cut through muscle, tendons and ligaments and required approximately 30 stitches.

He was wearing the protective equipment provided by his employer however, this did not include a protective glove for his dominant hand.  The work equipment he was using at the time was also defective, contributing to the accident.

As a result of the accident, our client no longer has any muscles growing in the bottom of his hand and has lost quite a lot of feeling in his thumb.

“I’ve learned how to get on with it but it’s still not right. I struggle with a lot of stupid everyday things like buttons and tying my laces and I will drop things all the time like cutlery and cups.

“But I’ve learned how to get on with things as what else can you do?”

Work injury claim with Digby Brown Dundee

Our client decided to contact Digby Brown’s Dundee office about making a claim for compensation and spoke to Associate Sarah Douglas who agreed to take on his case.

“Sarah was such a help and I couldn’t fault her at all, it was a really good service.

“The whole process was made easy and I was pointed in the right direction. They got all the right people involved to win my case and I didn’t have to do anything. They took care of everything and made it as easy as possible for me – rather than themselves.”

Very quickly after contacting the company’s insurers an admission of liability was made. This means that the employer accepted that the accident was their fault.

The insurers make offer with no medical evidence

An initial offer of £5,500 was made without any medical evidence to support the claim. Without specialist medical evidence there was no way to accurately determine the full impact of our clients injuries and what he was owed in compensation. As such, the initial offer was rejected.

After collecting expert medical reports the insurers then increased their offer by another £10,500. However, our lawyers felt that this was still not enough to compensate for the trauma that the accident had caused to our client, nor did it reflect that, as a result of his injuries, he was at a disadvantage should he find himself on the labour market.

Our client had young children and after the accident he was unable to get involved in their care in the same way he had been able to previously. He was also still feeling numbness and pain in his thumb, which after speaking with our experts he found out would probably never go away.

Additionally, even though he was able to continue in his previous employment despite his injury, if he did have to find another job in the future, he would be unable to undertake certain tasks and, therefore, be at a disadvantage. Our lawyers fought to get him compensation to cover that eventuality.

After considering the offer, our client agreed with the legal advice from our team and the offer was rejected.

With no acceptable offers forthcoming from the company’s insurers, our lawyers began the process of taking the insurers to court in order to achieve fair compensation. This was all funded by Compensate, our legal funding for personal injury cases.

Secured over six times more compensation

After negotiations at the pre-trial meeting our team was able to secure a full and final settlement offer of £35,000.

This is six times more than the original offer and also meant that our client no longer needed to go to court.

“I was really happy with the final outcome, it changed my life. It really helped me move forward and I couldn’t have done without it.

“I would advise anyone to speak with Digby Brown straight away for help without a doubt. I’ve already recommended Digby Brown to others – the service was top marks.”