Personal Injury Lawyers in Dudley

A No Win No Fee agreement also known as a Conditional Fee Agreement is an agreement which protects you against having to pay legal fees if you lose your claim. If you win your claim, we recover part of our costs from the Defendant or from their insurers and part from a pre-agreed percentage of such costs from you, this is known as a success fee. The success fee will, in monetary terms, never be more than 25% of your award of general damages and past losses.

Yes it is possible to claim compensation on behalf of another person, such as a child or protected party, in the capacity of a litigation friend. A litigation friend can be a parent/guardian, a family member or friend, a professional carer, a social worker or a solicitor.

Children under the age of 18 cannot use solicitors to make a claim or to make legal decisions regarding their claim. A protected party is an adult who cannot manage their own affairs due to a serious injury/illness or the lack of mental capacity to make decisions for themselves.

The litigation friend will be responsible for communicating with the personal injury solicitors and for making decisions in respect of the other person’s claim.

Adults have three years from the date of the accident or from the date a person was first made aware that they had suffered an injury or illness due to negligence to issue Court Proceedings. This time period is set out in the Limitation Act 1980. If Court Proceedings are not commenced by the third year anniversary of the date of the accident then the claim will be statue barred and the Defendant would likely raise Limitation as a Defence. However, in some circumstances the Court may exercise its discretion to allow a claim to proceed.

For children, the time limit is also three years from the date of the accident, but the three year time period does not start until the child reaches the age of 18.

You are able to claim for your physical or psychological injuries, including the pain and suffering you have experienced, how these injuries have affected the different aspects in your life and how they may affect these in the future. You are also able to claim for past and future financial losses and expenses (For example, loss of earnings and cost of treatment).

If you were partly at fault for causing an accident then you may be eligible to make a claim. This is known as split liability or contributory negligence.

Split liability is where both parties are found to be at fault for causing an accident and each party is compensated accordingly on the percentage in which the other party was at fault. Split liability can often be the outcome for settling car accident claims. Contributory negligence is when an injured person fails to have regard for their own safety. For example, if you were involved in a car accident and you were not wearing a seatbelt, you have not taken an appropriate action to reduce the risk of your injury and may be found contributorily negligent.

However, if you were injured as a result of an accident that was entirely your fault you will not be able to claim compensation for your injury.