Accidents which lead to serious injury and disability may be caused by more than one person’s behaviour. Where someone has been seriously injured in an accident caused by somebody else, but their own actions also contributed to the accident or their injury, the injured person’s compensation may be reduced or ‘discounted’.
The discount will be proportionate to their own contributory negligence. However, the injured person may still be entitled to substantial compensation for their injuries. This is particularly important where the accident leads to catastrophic injuries, such as brain injury or other major trauma, where compensation may be a lifeline to rehabilitation, essential care and support and financial stability.
We strongly recommend that severely injured clients, or their families, should speak to us first before assuming they were to blame for their accident, so that we can advise on their entitlement to rehabilitation and compensation based on our expert assessment of the strength of their claim.
Our experienced injury claims lawyers are experts at achieving substantial compensation even in cases where the defendant’s insurers allege that our client’s own actions partly caused or contributed to the accident or their injury.
We always fight unreasonable allegations of contributory negligence or excessive discounts:
- where they are not justified by the evidence;
- where they are not relevant to our client’s injury, (such as failure to wear a motorcycle helmet if the injury relates to the spine, limbs etc but not their head);
- where allegations of contributory negligence are used as a stalling tactic, defensive move or to delay our client’s access to settlement, interim payments or funding for rehabilitation.