Car crash in works car - settlement advice.

hieveryone

Posted on another board but advised to post on here for some more advice.



Just after some advice - the story is a bit long so will cut it down!

- April 2012 partner was crashed into whilst driving in his works car.
- Visited doctor regarding severe pain, prescribed painkillers.
- Awoke one night in severe pain, back was 'twisted', visited A&E, prescribed more painkillers.
- Was awarded physiotherapy sessions x 10 through insurance company.
- Attended specialist medical examination on request of insurance company - consultant estimated 12 month recovery time.
- Physiotherapy finished.
- Diagnosed with something similar to a 'bulging disc' in lower back, which is pressing on nearby nerves and causing muscles to spasm.
- Two more 'flare ups' since physiotherapy finished - partner now paying for private physiotherapy as insurance company have refused further sessions.
- Visited doctor again as pain very severe - referred for MRI scan.
- Since accident, had periods off from work as work involves long travel and lifting.
- MRI scan booked for February. Physio has advised partner to be aware that they will most likely recommend surgery on his back.

Throughout all this, the solicitor assigned to my boyfriend through his work have been in contact with updates. The other insurance company have offered £2400 and now £2800 as a settlement figure.

We have refused these offers but feel that the solicitors are pushing for us to settle. Has anyone else had any experience with this sort of claim and what was the outcome? We are not being greedy but feel that for nearly a year of severe pain so far that £2800 is not a reasonable offer - any advice out there?

Thanks!

jaybeetoo

Do not settle until you at least know the extent of the medical problems. If you settle now and the MRI scan shows up more problems in Feb, you can't go back and ask for more money.

Crazy_Jamie

Alright, there is a lot to write here so I might as well just dive in.

1) The first thing to do is to cast off any notion that you may be able to get a feel for the valuation of your partner's injuries by reading about the awards that other forum members received in their claims. When threads of this nature pop up they are inevitably contributed to by a handful of members who are happy to reveal their settlement figures. Whilst I appreciate that these members are trying to help, the examples they provide are practically almost certainly useless. Valuing injuries is a specialist skill, and is something that only those who have qualifications and experience with personal injury litigation can do with any degree of accuracy. Each case will turn on its individual facts for the purposes of valuation of injuries. If you want a ball park figure the best person to provide that information is your solicitor because they know the case best. Taking note of random examples on here isn't going to help you in the slightest.

2) Following on from the point above, jaybeetoo is quite correct in what he says. You need to have a definitive prognosis from a medical expert before a case can have a realistic prospect of settling. Simply put, if your solicitor does not have that prognosis, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to value the injuries accurately, and as such it is unlikely that meaningful discussions on settlement can take place. This can have the effect of delaying the case, which can be frustrating, but unfortunately is something that commonly happens in personal injury litigation. The fact is that a definitive prognosis is needed on your partner's injuries before the case can realistically settle, and it is both sensible and correct that that is allowed to happen before the litigation is resolved.

3) Just as an aside, but £2,800 is a figure that would represent a back injury of roughly one year or thereabouts. So in other words a back injury that fully resolves within one year from the date of the accident. I say that for information purposes only; your partner's prognosis does not appear to be definitive yet, but I just thought you'd be interested in knowing what that offered figure represents. A member in the other thread correctly pointed out that if your partner has pre existing problems with his back, or it is determined that the current issues would have eventually come to the fore anyway, the valuation of the injury will be lower. But that is something that will be specified by the medical experts and is merely something to note at this point.

4) Just a small note, but if money becomes a problem in the mean time due to your partner not working, you can request an interim payment from the other side. This is on the assumption that liability is admitted, which I am assuming it is. So if you do get into money problems, make sure you inform your solicitors so that they can approach the other side for an interim payment.

5) There was reference in the other thread to Part 36 offers, which were described as 'final' by the member in that thread. Whilst it is true that if the case proceeds to trial there may be cost consequences for not beating a Part 36 offers, it is wrong to describe these as 'final' offers. It is not uncommon for many Part 36 offers to be made in personal injury cases, and they can be made by either side. A better way to describe them would be 'official' offers. If one is made by the other side it is important to consider it and accept it if it is reasonable, but your solicitor will advise you in this regard.

6) On a practical note, why do you say that you feel like your solicitors are putting pressure on you to settle? As I have said above, you need a definitive prognosis before you can realistically settle the case, and with the possibility of further surgery this case doesn't sound to me like it is ready to settle yet. Of course I could be wrong about that because I don't know all the facts, but I am curious as to why you feel pressured by the solicitor.

I think that answers everything for now. If you do have any more questions, feel free to ask them.

hieveryone

Thank you Crazy Jamie!

On the settlement point, on both occasions where an offer has been made by the other party, the solicitors have 'advised' us to settle. This has been written in their letters to us, that they feel it is a fair offer and we should settle. As I've mentioned in the post, the injury is still ongoing and so I wasn't sure whether we should be settling before he is fully recovered.

Also, and perhaps reading too much into it, but on the outset of the correspondence with us, the solicitors seemed very helpful and informative about the proceedings etc. The 'tone' of the letters/communication we have had has taken a slight change and we are starting to feel like a burden on them?

Thanks again.

Crazy_Jamie

hieveryone wrote: »

Thank you Crazy Jamie!

On the settlement point, on both occasions where an offer has been made by the other party, the solicitors have 'advised' us to settle. This has been written in their letters to us, that they feel it is a fair offer and we should settle. As I've mentioned in the post, the injury is still ongoing and so I wasn't sure whether we should be settling before he is fully recovered.

Also, and perhaps reading too much into it, but on the outset of the correspondence with us, the solicitors seemed very helpful and informative about the proceedings etc. The 'tone' of the letters/communication we have had has taken a slight change and we are starting to feel like a burden on them?

Thanks again.

It is of slight concern that they are advising you to settle when your partner's prognosis is unclear. As I have said, the £2,800 offer is for a one year back injury or thereabouts, so unless there has been some diagnosis of an accelerated injury or pre existing conditions it seems too low on the face of it. How exactly did they advise you to accept the offer? Did they fully advise you as to the potential repercussions of not accepting reasonable Part 36 offers? Was it a sort of 'it is just about reasonable but it is up to you' letter or was it more 'this is a great offer you should settle now without hesitation'? Have you queried with them why the advice is to settle when your partner's prognosis is unclear? Whilst you may feel like a burden for them, they are still your solicitors and should be able to answer straight forward questions just as those relating to an offer made by the other side. Have you tried calling them and having a conversation with the fee earner that is in charge of your case?

hieveryone

Crazy_Jamie wrote: »

It is of slight concern that they are advising you to settle when your partner's prognosis is unclear. As I have said, the £2,800 offer is for a one year back injury or thereabouts, so unless there has been some diagnosis of an accelerated injury or pre existing conditions it seems too low on the face of it. How exactly did they advise you to accept the offer? Did they fully advise you as to the potential repercussions of not accepting reasonable Part 36 offers? Was it a sort of 'it is just about reasonable but it is up to you' letter or was it more 'this is a great offer you should settle now without hesitation'? Have you queried with them why the advice is to settle when your partner's prognosis is unclear? Whilst you may feel like a burden for them, they are still your solicitors and should be able to answer straight forward questions just as those relating to an offer made by the other side. Have you tried calling them and having a conversation with the fee earner that is in charge of your case?

We had had a letter with the offer on and asking us to respond as son as possible. We replied to say that we didn't feel it was appropriate to be accepting at the moment due to ongoing issue etc. They replied via email to say that they feel it is a fair offer and that we should settle.

My partner isn't a big 'talker' and gets quite nervous/intimidated on the phone, and so probably wouldn't do much good him ringing up.

They have eventually taken our word for it and expressed that they will wait until April (one year exactly) before contacting him again to discuss claim.

C_Mababejive

Some solicitors may be tempted to encourage acceptance so that they too can generate their rake off.

BertTheRaccoon

I would seriously recommend you look at appointing another solicitor.

It sounds like you are in the clutches of what is known in the industry as a "factory firm", it's not quite reached the sorry state of teenagers with headsets, but that event is not too far off.

The bottom line here is that the poor souls that work for these firms are under pressure from their own management to settle cases ASAP. They don't have enough time to do a proper job and will often be putting pressure on settlement on the basis of a first medical report.

We had a case we took over from one a few years back. Client being advised to accept £11k in settlement, we settled the claim for £296k!

I would recommend you seek out a decent local law firm who will actually get you properly compensated for past & future losses. They will take instructions and get the file from the current lot. It'll be a brief bit of messing about and you'll be told the new lawyers won't be covered under the legal policy you probably have, but don't let that phase you.

foxypink

I have been in a similar situation to you and would advise not to settle until you know the full extent of the injuries. 3 and 1/2 years ago I was involved in an accident when car went into the back of mine. At first the doctor thought I had whiplash (and that I was prob putting it on for the compo) but I had never experienced pain like it. After countless trips to my gp and physio sessions I had an mri scan which showed I had a herniated disc.

Please don't let the physio scare your partner about the surgery the physio is not an orthopeadic surgeon and cannot give you the full information or diagnosis especially without even seeing an mri scan! Hopefully your partner will be lucky and wont need surgery but that is down to the spinal consultant to decide on and not the physio. There are other treatments that may work such as the epidural steroid injection but nothing will be decided until the scan results are back.

Has your partner been assessed by an independant doctor? this would have been arranged through the insurance. Their report which is written based on the information contained in your medical notes will provide evidence to back up your claim and will help give a prognosis and highlight any future problems that may arise from the injury sustained. Its improtant that the understand how the back injury has impacted on you heath and life style, you should have been provided with a copy of the report if you have.

Do not feel pressurised into settling early I had my accident in May 09 and only last week agreed and accepted an out of court settlement 2 weeks before we were due to go to court.

Crazy_Jamie

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

I would seriously recommend you look at appointing another solicitor.

Whilst I wouldn't necessarily advise you to appoint another solicitor on the basis of what has been stated in the thread, I am concerned that a solicitor would advise you to accept an offer of settlement before a definitive prognosis has been obtained. It is encouraging that the solicitors have now 'backed down' on the settlement point and are going to allow the matter to progress further, but there will understandably be an element of doubt there as to whether they are acting in your best interests.

Which firm is this, out of interest? If you don't want to put the name in the thread feel free to fire me a PM.

BertTheRaccoon

I agree with you Jamie, perhaps my comments were a bit gung-ho, but my mind set is that there just seems to be a desire by the appointed sols to get it settled, which appears totally contrary to the client's best interests.

My thoughts are they there is perhaps unlikely to be a proper assessment of what other financial losses the Claimant may be exposed to further down the line/ possible disadvantage in the open labour market, future reduced earnings, pension rights etc etc. This is something the factory firms just don't handle properly.

But I agree, it maybe best leaving matters as they are for now and just making sure the solicitors are serving the interests of their client and not themselves.