Welcome to our guide on how to make a personal injury claim for electrical burn injuries. Whether you had an accident at work, a public place accident or a road traffic accident, if you can prove that someone else’s negligence resulted in your suffering, you could be entitled to compensation. In this guide, we’ll talk you through the claims process and explain what steps to take in the wake of your accident.
Electrical burn injuries compensation
For details on what topics our guide will cover, please continue to the next section. Alternatively, you can speak to one of our specialist advisors today for a free consultation on your case:
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- Call us on 0161 696 9685
- Complete a contact form
- Chat to us on the pop-up live support feature
Select a Section
- A Guide To Claiming Compensation Payouts For Electrical Burn Injuries
- What Are Electrical Burn Injuries?
- How Can You Suffer An Electrical Burn Injuries At Work?
- Electrical Burn Injuries In A Public Place
- Essential Personal Injury Compensation Calculations
- What Are Special Damages?
- Case Study: £150,000 For Electrical Burn Injuries
- Your Claim’s Value From Our Advice Team
- Why Should Victims Consider No Win No Fee Claims?
- Our Team Can Give You Free Legal Advice
- More Resources And Guides On Electrical Burn Injuries
- Electrical Burn Injuries FAQs
A Guide To Claiming Compensation Payouts For Electrical Burn Injuries
To begin our guide, we’ll discuss what electrical burn injuries are and how you could be affected by them. We’ll then explore how you could sustain them in various contexts, including accidents at work, public place accidents and road traffic accidents.
Next, we’ll explain how personal injury claims are typically valued and discuss what types of damage you could be compensated for. To illustrate how the claims process could typically proceed, we’ve included a case study as an example, where a claimant secured £150,000 in compensation. In addition, we’ve presented a breakdown of what damages they were able to claim in our compensation calculator table, which covers their pain, suffering and financial losses.
Following this, we’ll discuss the benefits of using a No Win No Fee agreement to get legal help making your claim. If you have any questions at all while reading through this guide please do not hesitate to call our claims team on the number above. They can evaluate your case for free in a consultation. If they can see that the outcome may be successful they will offer to put you together with a personal injury solicitor. If the solicitor takes on your case it will be on No Win No Fee terms.
What Are Electrical Burn Injuries?
An electric shock can occur when the body is exposed to electrical currents. The higher the voltage, the more damage that can result. Whether the body is damp and what areas of the body are exposed to the electric shock are also important factors that can determine how someone is affected. Some common injuries resulting from an electric shock can include:
- Nerve damage, with symptoms including acute numbness and tingling
- Cardiac arrest, in some cases this can prove fatal
- Brain damage, with symptoms including unconsciousness and seizures
Electrical thermal burns can also result from electric shocks.
How Can You Suffer An Electrical Burn Injuries At Work?
You may have sustained an electrical burns injury in an accident at work. In this section, we will look at how laws protect us while we are at work. And why it is important for employers to safeguard our health and well being.
Employers owe their employees a duty of care to help ensure their safety while at work. The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 outlines this duty of care, establishing the measures that they must follow. So, employers could do the following to ensure a safer working environment;
- Regular maintenance checks
- Carry out repairs within a reasonable timeframe
- Provide necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Supervise high-risk tasks
- Display required health and safety signage
How Could An Employer Breach Their Duty Of Care?
Not all accidents that happen will be the result of your employer breaching their duty of care to you. Therefore not all injuries will qualify for compensation. To have a valid claim for an accident at work it is key to show how this duty of care was breached by an employer. Some examples of breaches could include:
- Damp near an electrical source that’s been reported but not addressed
- Being asked to complete electrical work without appropriate training
- Undertaking high-risk tasks without being supervised
- Not being given the correct PPE to do the job safely
Figures from the Health and Safety Executive help illustrate how common accidents at work are. Between 2019 and 2020:
- 111 workers were killed at work
- 693,000 workers sustained a non-fatal injury
- 6.3 million working days were lost due to non-fatal workplace injuries
Please note these figures from the HSE do not reflect breaches of duty in the workplace. They are statistics showing overall accidents in the workplace. If you’ve been injured in a work-related accident that wasn’t your fault, please get in touch with our team of specialist advisors today for a free consultation. Alternatively, please read on for information on public place accidents.
Electrical Burn Injuries In A Public Place
You may have sustained electrical burns in a public place accident. Though it may not be immediately obvious whether a third party was responsible for your suffering if the incident could have been prevented by a party who was responsible for your safety this could mean there has been a breach in the duty of care owed to you.
Under The Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, those in control of public places owe a duty of care to all users and visitors to help ensure that these spaces are safe. The occupier can be someone in full or partial control of an area. Some examples of public places commonly include:
- Pavements, roads and footpaths
- Restaurants, bars and nightclubs
- Fairgrounds, zoos and theme parks
- Parks, outdoor gyms and playgrounds
- Shops, shopping centres and retail outlets
To make public areas safe the occupier could:
- Provide the safest possible environment for all lawful visitors to their premises
- Extend the same duty of care to all visitors or users of the space, including contractors completing work
- Make allowances for children who are less able to judge personal safety
- provide clear warnings to unavoidable risk
- Give clear indication by displaying disclaimers (such as ‘private property’ or ‘keep out’ signs) if this duty of care will not be assumed in a certain space
How Can Occupiers Breach Their Duty of Care?
Here are some examples of how those in control of a public place could breach their duty of care, leading to accidents and injuries:
- Failure to display appropriate health and safety signs
- Neglecting to fix a reported leak that’s creating a hazard
- Not following appropriate fire safety measures
- Lack of regular risk assessments
- Installing faulty fixtures or fittings
Whatever your situation, if you’ve suffered as a result of a public place accident that wasn’t your fault, please contact our team today to get a free consultation.
Essential Personal Injury Compensation Calculations
If you’re interested in getting an idea of how much you could be entitled to for your electrical burns, you may look to a personal injury compensation calculator for a figure as to what your claim may be awarded. However, these can only take into account one part of your claim. A successful settlement is made up of two types of main damages.
Alternatively, why not get in touch with our team of specialist advisors today? They offer free consultations that are completely personalised to your unique situation.
There are two types of damage that make up a typical personal injury settlement: general and special damages. General damages account for the pain and suffering you experienced as a result of your injury, both physically and psychologically.
The Judicial College Guidelines is a resource that provides compensation brackets for different types of injuries based on past awards. These figures can help determine how much compensation you could be entitled to in general damages.
What Are Special Damages?
The second pillar of your settlement could be special damages. These aim to compensate you for any financial losses you suffered as a result of your injuries. If you can evidence any expenses you had to pay out of pocket for, you could be able to recover these costs too. Some examples of what you could claim special damages for include:
- Loss of earnings or future loss of earnings
- Private treatment not provided by the NHS
- Travel expenses to and from appointments related to your injury
- Impacted pensions or bonuses
- Care costs, whether gracious (from loved ones) or professional
- Damage to property
- Home adaptation, such as handrails or stairlifts
- Domestic help, such as the cost of a cleaner during your recovery period
To see how these costs could help build a final settlement as part of a personal injury claim, please read on to see our example case study in the next section.
Case Study: £150,000 For Electrical Burn Injuries
Mr Black, 34, suffered an accident at work that led to him sustaining severe electrical burns. As a factory worker, Mr Black was passing through a poorly lit walkway in the factory when he tripped on a large cable obstructing his path. Upon falling, he landed against an exposed circuit board of the factory’s generator that hadn’t been properly secured after building maintenance took place
Mr Black suffered a high-voltage electric shock, which resulted in severe electrical burns to his arms, neck, and head, including his face. Though Mr Black was immediately rushed to hospital, the burns he suffered were so severe that he required multiple skin grafts. In addition, he sought private cosmetic surgery that wasn’t provided by the NHS.
This was followed by a lengthy recovery period, during which he was unable to go about his usual activities. After he had physically recovered, Mr Black was left with severe disfigurement where his skin had been damaged, resulting in psychological trauma. For this, he sought private counselling, which continued long after his recovery period.
Electrical Burn Injuries Settlement
Mr Black decided to seek legal help after an internal investigation in work proved that there had been several failings. After his lawyer uncovered CCTV footage of the incident, as well as documents proving that maintenance work on the circuit board took place earlier that day, Mr Black was able to make a successful claim against his employers for negligence. They failed to replace old bulbs that had been reported previously, leaving the walkway poorly lit and therefore hazardous.
In total, Mr Black was awarded £150,000 in compensation. For his severe scarring and psychological reaction to it, Mr Black was awarded £90,000 in general damages. In addition, he was awarded £60,000 in special damages, accounting for out-of-pocket expenses such as loss of earnings and private treatment costs. Please see the table below for a full breakdown of this final settlement.
| General Damages | Compensation | Special Damages | Compensation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very Severe Scarring - including psychological reaction to disfigurement | £93,300 | Loss of earnings | £50,000 |
| Cosmetic surgery | £3,000 | ||
| Counselling | £250 | ||
| Professional at-home care costs | £3,000 | ||
| Medication costs | £200 | ||
| Travel costs | £250 | ||
| TOTAL | £150,000 |
This is an example case study to illustrate how a typical claim for electrical burns could progress and what damages could be included. This is not based on a real-life case.
Your Claim’s Value From Our Advice Team
Are you interested in finding out how much compensation you could be entitled to for your electrical burns? If so, please speak to one of our specialist advisors today about your case and they can give you a free consultation.
By answering a few simple questions, you can learn whether you have grounds to make a claim and how much compensation you could be eligible for. What’s more, if you’d like legal help throughout the claims process, an advisor can connect you to our panel of personal injury lawyers.
Our panel always works on a No Win No Fee basis, so you don’t have to worry about the usual cost of hiring a solicitor. To learn more about these types of agreements and how you could benefit from one, please see the next section.
Why Should Victims Consider No Win No Fee Claims?
No Win No Fee agreements offer an excellent service for many reasons. Designed to help claimants get legal help making a claim, regardless of their financial standing, these types of agreements have many benefits, including:
- Upon hiring your solicitor, there are no upfront costs to pay them
- As your claim proceeds, there are no running costs
- If your claim fails, you don’t have to cover your solicitor’s fees
- Any success fees are capped as a small percentage of your payout
As mentioned above, our panel of personal injury lawyers always works on a No Win No Fee basis. For a free consultation with one of our specialist advisors, please see the next section for options on how to get in touch today.
Our Team Can Give You Free Legal Advice
If you’re interested in learning whether you could have grounds to make a claim or wondering how much compensation you could be entitled to, please don’t hesitate to get in touch today for a free consultation.
Our team of specialist advisors is on hand 24/7 to discuss your case with you and you can reach them using any of the following contact options:
- Call us on 0161 696 9685
- Complete a contact form
- Chat to us on the pop-up live support feature
More Resources And Guides On Electrical Burn Injuries
Thank you for reading our electrical burn injury claims guide. Below are some links to further resources on the subject:
- Information on accident at work claims
- Our guide to road traffic accident claims
- Industrial injury claims guide
- NHS information on burns and scalds
Electrical Burn Injuries FAQs
What is the first thing you should do to treat electrical burns?
It is always advisable to seek emergency treatment if you have suffered any type of electric shock. Very often symptoms may not be apparent straight away for this reason it is important to get checked out as soon as you can.
What is the most common injury from electrical shock?
The skin could be burnt, which could result in scarring. Furthermore, the nervous system could also be impacted, causing tingling, numbness, and limpness in the affected area. Depending on what body part suffered the trauma and the severity of the electric shock, such as brain damage resulting from a serious head injury.
Will I recover from a serious electric shock?
This depends on the voltage of your electric shock and the severity of your resulting injuries. If you’re harmed, you should always seek medical attention and listen to their advice on recovery.
Thank you for reading our guide on how to make a claim for electrical burn injuries.
Guide by NS
Edited by AS