What happened:
Our client, a man in his late 30’s was stuck whilst crossing the road by one of two cars which were racing each other in Birmingham. Such was the speed of the impact that he was thrown some 20 metres along the road.
This led to the man suffering a number of serious injuries including:
The victim was then rushed to Queen Elizabeth Hospital where he remained an inpatient for about a month. He had numerous surgeries to address his orthopaedic injuries. He was later transferred to Heartlands Hospital for another lengthy inpatient stay before eventually being discharged.
What went wrong:
There were several challenging factors in the case. Our client, because of his head injury, was unable to recollect the accident at all and could give no evidence as to what happened, how fast the car was going etc.
However, we managed to obtain cctv footage from a nearby premises which captured the accident. This showed that the Claimant (who was not a native English speaker) had looked the wrong way down the road before crossing.
Impact on client:
The injuries were life changing. The Claimant was unable, because of his head injury, to return to his previous work in a factory. He lacked capacity. He suffered severe personality changes and required a good deal of care and assistance with day to day living.
Legal outcome:
This case was settled after issue of Court Proceedings. The accident would likely have been avoided entirely had the Claimant looked before crossing the road. He therefore recovered partial damages at 68.5% of the full value of the claim based on contributory negligence.
The case required significant input from an interpreter and also required a Court of Protection Deputy to manage the Claimant’s settlement.
Injuries involving head trauma can be particularly challenging but the case was successfully concluded with a gross settlement of circa £4.6m which allowed our client to secure the long term care he requires because of his injuries and to maximise his quality of life.
