Advice On Making A Personal Injury Claim Against Your Employer

By Danielle Nicholson. Last Updated 2nd August 2023. In this guide, we explain when and how you could make a personal injury claim against your employer. If you have suffered a personal injury at work due to your employer breaching their duty of care, you may be entitled to claim compensation.

Within this guide, we’ll discuss the duty of care employers owe their staff and examples of how employer negligence could result in a workplace accident. Also, we’ll share some guideline compensation awards and how they’re calculated. Furthermore, this guide will cover some of the benefits of working with a No Win No Fee solicitor for your claim.

To learn more about claiming against your employer, you can contact our friendly advisors. Our team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to help answer your questions. You can contact our advisors today by:

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Making a personal injury claim against your employer guide

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A Guide On Making A Personal Injury Claim Against Your Employer

As part of their duty of care, employers need to try and keep their staff safe at work. To do this, they need to try and reduce any risks by conducting regular assessments of the working environment. Where possible, any risks must be removed. If that’s not possible, the risk of injury to an employee must be reduced. For example, they could fit handrails in areas where the floor becomes slippery due to water usage.

In this article, we’ll try to address some common questions about workplace injury claims including:

Will an employee injured at work automatically receive compensation from their employer?
Can I sue my employer for personal injury?
What is the average payout for a personal injury claim in the UK?

If an accident happens because your employer was negligent, i.e. they could’ve prevented it if they’d done something differently, you could claim damages for any injuries. That is not something your employer is allowed to prevent you from doing. If they threaten, demote, discipline or sack you, then you could make a separate claim.

You needn’t worry about the financial impact of claiming either. That’s because employers must have insurance to cover such claims because of The Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. This means the company won’t pay your compensation, their insurer will.

Evidence to support your claim

To substantiate your claim, you will need to demonstrate how the accident was to blame, who caused it and how you were injured. To help achieve this you could use the following as evidence:

An accident report log from your employer.
Details of witnesses who saw what happened and can provide a statement.
Medical records following hospital or GP treatment.
Photographs of the scene of the accident. Ideally, these should contain the root cause of the accident and be taken before anything is fixed or removed.
CCTV footage if any cameras cover the area where the accident happened.

Our team will happily review your evidence for you to see if there is enough to start a claim. Please get in touch if you’d like to know more.

How Is A Claim For An Injury At Work Calculated?

If your personal injury claim at work is successful, your settlement could be made up of two heads of claim: general and special damages.

In a claim for an injury at work, general damages compensate for the physical pain and mental suffering caused by the injury. When valuing claims, legal professionals may refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) for guidance. This document provides a list of guideline compensation amounts for different types of injuries.

In our table below, we’ve listed a few figures from the 16th edition of the JCG. It is only provided as guidance.

Injury	Level of Severity	Further details	Amount
Leg Injury	Amputation (iv)	Below the knee amputation of a single leg.	£97,980 to £132,990
Knee Injury	Severe (ii)	A leg fracture that has extended into the knee joint and causes constant pain and limits the knee's movement.	£52,120 to £69,730
Fractures of Jaws	(ii)	Serious fractures that cause permanent consequences like problems eating, struggling to open mouth and possible paraesthesia.	£17,960 to £30,490
Back Injury	Moderate (ii)	Ligament or muscle disturbance due to frequently encountered injuries to the back. This will cause backache.	£12,510 to £27,760
Ankle Injury	Moderate	Fractures or ligamentous tears that make it difficult to walk on uneven ground, stand/walk for a long time and will cause awkwardness on stairs.	£13,740 to £26,590
Shoulder Injury	Serious	A dislocated shoulder as well as damage to the lower brachial plexus that cause neck and shoulder pain.	£12,770 to £19,200
Arm Injury	(d)	Simple forearm fractures.	£6,610 to £19,200
Psychiatric Damage Generally	Moderate	Despite struggling with various issues, the person will have made significant improvements and the prognosis will be good.	£5,860 to £19,070
Foot Injury	Modest	Examples include puncture wounds, ruptured ligaments and also simple metatarsal fractures that will cause pain and aching.	Up to £13,740
Neck Injury	Minor (i)	Soft tissue injuries that fully recover in around 1 to 2-years without the need for surgery.	£4,350 to £7,890

To see if you could make a personal injury claim for employer neglgience, you can contact our advisors today. They could also offer you a free valuation of your potential claim.

Other Damages Which May Be Awarded

On top of general damages, it is possible to seek special damages too. This is the part of your claim that aims to cover any costs, losses or expenses resulting from your injuries. What you can claim for will vary from case to case. In some instances, you may not need to include special damages in your claim. However, if you do, you could claim for:

Lost income. Should you need time away from work following your accident, you could claim back any lost earnings. These could result because you are only paid Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) while you are off work.
Medical costs. While you are likely to be given free treatment by the NHS, you could still have to pay out. For example, you might need to cover the cost of over the counter medications, prescriptions or some services not provided by the NHS.
Care costs. Some claimants will need support with daily activities during their recovery. In those cases, it might be possible to work out an hourly rate for the time a loved one or friend spent caring for you.
Travel costs. It is quite usual to need to make trips to your doctor, a pharmacy or a hospital while you’re injured. If that’s true, you could claim back transport fares, parking fees or fuel costs.
Home adaptations. Should you become disabled following an accident at work, you might find it easier to cope if modifications are made to your home or vehicle. In some cases, these costs could be paid back as part of your claim.
Future lost income. Where a longer-term injury adversely affects your ability to work, you could seek future lost earnings. The amount awarded will be based on your age, job prospects and current salary.

What Is A Personal Injury Claim Against Your Employer?

In terms of being able to claim compensation, a personal injury claim against your employer might be possible if you have suffered because of an accident at work that was caused by your employer’s negligence. Your claim could consist of general damages (to cover any pain and suffering) as well as special damages (to cover expenses caused by the injury.

The fact that an accident at work occurs doesn’t automatically entitle you to compensation. It must also result in you suffering in some way. When you provide evidence, you will need to show that your injuries were caused by your employer or colleague being negligent.

The types of employer negligence that might entitle you to claim include:

Not being trained properly in relation to your tasks.
Being supplied incorrect or inadequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Not being allowed sufficient rest breaks.
Not being told where to find the company’s health and safety policy and procedures.
Failure to maintain or fix work equipment, machinery or tools.

If any of these failures has caused you to be injured, you could be eligible for compensation. To find out if your case is viable, why not get in touch today?

How Long Do I Have To Make A Personal Injury Claim Against My Employer?

When making a personal injury claim, you need to act within a legally enforced time limit. Generally, as per the Limitation Act 1980, this time limit is 3 years. This means that you must start your claim within 3 years of the date you were injured.

The 3-year time limit has two exceptions:

Those who have the mental capacity to claim – Whilst a litigation friend must be appointed to claim for those in this category, they are free to do so without the constraints of time limits. However, the time limit would begin from the date the injured party is deemed capable of making their own claim – should this ever occur.
Injuries to children – For under 18s, there is also no time limit until their 18^th Then, the 3-year time limit begins. Before this date, a litigation friend must be appointed to claim on behalf of the child if a claim is to be made.

To find out if you’re owed compensation for your injury, and if a claim could be made, get in touch with our advisors today.

What Duty Of Care Does Your Employer Owe You?

In the case of employers, one piece of relevant legislation is The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Section 2 (1) of the act says that “It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.”

On that basis, employers need to take action to:

Identify any dangers in the workplace.
Remove or mitigate for those dangers.

In general, the requirement is for your employer to conduct regular risk assessments to try and spot any potential hazards. Potential problems don’t always have to be removed though. It might be possible to reduce the risk to staff by providing proper training on completing tasks safely or by providing PPE to protect staff. The duty of care, in that case, is provided by The Personal Protective Equipment At Work Regulations 1992.

To find out if you could be eligible to claim because your employer breached their duty of care and caused you to be injured, please give us a call today.

Make A No Win No Fee Personal Injury Claim Against Your Employer

The thought of losing the money you’ve paid to a lawyer if your claim is lost is enough to put you off claiming. For that reason, we advise using a No Win No Fee service. If your claim is taken on, you’ll get access to specialist legal representation but, at the same time, your financial risk will be reduced.

Before offering this service, the solicitor must first check the viability of your claim. If they decide to represent you, they will provide a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) for you. This contract makes it clear what the solicitor needs to achieve before they are paid for their work. For example, it will show you that:

Advance payment of solicitor’s fees is not required.
You don’t pay for your solicitor’s work while they process your claim.
If the claim does not work out, you are not liable for any solicitor’s fees at all.

The only time your solicitor gets paid is where the case is won and compensation is paid to you. When that happens, your solicitor will keep a percentage of your settlement amount. This is shown in the CFA as a success fee so you’ll know the percentage payable before you sign it. To stop you from being overcharged, success fees are capped in law.

If you want us to check if your case would be taken on by a No Win No Fee solicitor, please contact us today. You can:

Call one of our specialists at our advice centre on 0161 696 9685
Send details of your claim through our enquiry page to let us know why you’d like to proceed.
Use our free live chat service to receive legal advice from an online advisor.

We are happy to offer our advice and review any case for free. After we’ve listened to what’s happened, we could refer your case to a personal injury solicitor. If they believe your case is strong enough and accept your claim, you’ll benefit from a No Win No Fee service.

As we have almost reached the conclusion of our guide, we will offer more support by linking to some additional resources. Please contact our free legal advice line if you need anything further.

Risk Assessments – Information on how employers should assess risks in the workplace.

Workplace Problems – Advice from Acas on how to deal with employer/employee issues at work.

Concussion Injuries – NHS guidance on what to do in the event of a head injury that causes a concussion.

We also have a bunch of dedicated guides on making an accident at work claim, which you can read below:

Accident At Work Claims

Road Traffic Accident Claims

Public Place Claims

Medical Negligence Claims

Personal Injury Claims

Personal Injury Claim Against Your Employer

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