Cheers

You really need to take legal advice on this, as the fact he is incomplete may make such a claim a little more complicated.

Having said that, the fact that the company was acting illegally, will help speed things up as it may help establish liability.

I used Irwin Mitchell as my solicitors, and had my case settled within 3 years out of court. I have no doubts in recommending them: http://www.irwinmitchell.com/

Here's the section you may need: http://www.irwinmitchell.com/Personal/Pers...dentsAtWork.htm

Regards

Simon.

There's lots of good advice and contacts with experienced solicitors here SIA legal advice webpage
Just make sure you use a spinal injuries specialist - I'd recommend mine but would rather he'd concentrate on my case :-)

Hi Simon

Am new to this site and just had to register when I saw this post! My hubby is an incomplete paraplegia (L1-L5) following removal of a spinal tumour two years ago. We instructed Irwin as soon as we realised that we could potentially have a claim but why do these things seem to take so long? On looking at other posts on the site, I can see that someone has been waiting 8 years and it is still not settled. Obviously it depends on the circumstances surrounding the sci but do these things take longer if the injuries were caused by an accident or medical negligence?

We have just reduced my hubby hours at work to make his life easier but I would so like him to reduce them further to give him more quality of life back.

Views welcome.

Hi,

We are right in the middle of a legal case at the moment, John had his accident at work in 1998 and the whole thing is driving us mad. John is told to watch what he is doing in case he is being spied on by a private detective, we keep telling them he cannot do anything he says he can't due to chronic pain etc. He had to see 8 different doctors for his claim in a 4 week period on top of his NHS doctors.

Your life is in limbo until it is sorted out, we need to move to a bungalow, we have found the perfect bungalow which needs work doing to it anyway, so adapting it would be ok as you would not be ripping new things out, but until all of this is settled we cannot do anything as we cannot afford to buy it before the compensation comes through.

Liability was awarded in January, 2002 with the award being 100% in John's favour.

My biggest piece of advice is make sure you say everything clearly and that it is recorded clearly, because if a doctor writes a short abbreviated note and it does not give the facts exactly how the event happened, the barristers and doctors for the defendants twist and turn everything.

The following is just a section of an argument we are having with a Doctor's report at this moment in time.

Dr Grant says "he lifted the second board and tried to push it above his head; he felt a popping
sensation at the back of his neck."

Our reply "This is wrong, he had lifted the board from the floor, raised it to a position above his head, and it was when he was stretching with the 50 lb to 60 lb, 8 ft x 4 ft sterling board above his head trying to push and stretch so that the men could reach the board off him, that he felt his neck go pop and he immediately had to drop the board from above his head to the floor. The men where about 10 ft to 12 ft above on top of the 40 ft long unit. He was not allowed to lean the board against the fridge as they did not want the board to scratch the articulated fridge unit. It swayed due to the fact that it had a surface area of 8 ft x 4 ft and weighed 50 lb to 60 lb and the only thing holding it in the air above John’s head, was John’s two outstretched arms which were trying to hold it up right, as well as to push upwards at the same time."

This has been recorded to have caused the TRAUMA, by the judge.

This was why the judgment was recorded as 100% causation. The judge agreed that the injuries were 100% the employers fault and that the task he was set was dangerous and likely to cause injury.
Even with the judgement set, 4 years later and they are still trying to argue whether or not John would have had some sort of bad back, and if they can prove it, then they will get out of paying so much.

Insurance Companies and Loss Adjusters, Barristers and Solicitors, Doctors and other professionals are making a small fortune arguing, while 8 years on we are still coming to terms with how an incomplete SCI affects your life. There are too many claims by people who are faking it, that when it comes to a genuine case they treat that as if it is a fake aswell, the insurance companies do not want to pay out if they can help it. It is horrid sitting there and listening to people who do not know you from Adam, calling you a liar and trying to twist your every word.

John was fitted for a wheelchair today and had half an hours worth of physio and it has nearly killed him, he is in agony.

So the best advice is make sure that every T is crossed and every I is doted, keep a diary of all facts and times and dates, also money spent visiting the hospital etc, because it can take a very long time and they expect you to remember facts and things and try to trip you up anyway they can. I'm not trying to paint a black picture, but you have to be prepared, the adverts on the TV do not tell it as it is. Some do settle easily, and some don't.

Our solicitor's were not specialists in spinal injuries, make sure the ones you use are. Stewarts Solicitor's specialise in Spinal Cord Injuries and they sound as if they know what they are on about. Ask your solicitor to recommend a Dr Harry Baker, he is a Spinal Rehabilitation Doctor who acts for people who have spinal injuries. He has been our godsend, if something is happening to John which we don't understand, I email him 24 hours a day or phone him morning, noon or evening and if he is home he answers, or he emails back or phones. He explains what is happening in english and really has been our saviour in a very confusing world.

John's injury has caused him to get progressively worse with time, incomplete injuries can be very confusing and there are too many doctors who do not understand them.

Good luck, and print of my poem called DON'T QUIT posted elsewhere on the forum, you may need to read it on a regular basis.

Don't be afraid to speak up and be heard, after all if it wasn't for your husbands claim, and many like him they would not have jobs, making money out of other peoples misery.

Our solicitor wrote a statement for us to sign saying that we just wanted all of this sorry nightmare to go away, so that we could get on with our lives. I asked him exactly which bit of this nightmare did he think was going away, we have to live with this injury, and we have coped so far and will continue to do so, but it definately is not going away and in John's case it has got progressively worse over the last 8 years.

Sorry to sound so morbid, but just telling it like it is.

Hope your husband continues to be brave and strong, John has been really brave and strong and so determined, but he even gets criticised for that. They basically say that if he has managed to work then he cannot be in as much pain as he says he is. GOD, why can't they praise him and say well done for being a trier, instead he is criticised and told he cannot be as bad as he says he is.

Anyway, I'm going to stop typing now before my fuse goes pop. We're both on very short fuses at the moment, everything is an uphill battle and everytime you try to battle forward, there is always someone who wants to knock you back.

Maria.

John is criticised all the time for working through the time he has had the injury.

He has told them that no matter what, he believes that a man works to provide for his family, plus bills still have to be paid, their answer is that he cannot be in as much pain as he says he is if he still works.

The government want disabled people to work, but then you are criticised for doing it.

John is really deep, he goes really quiet and copes with the pain in his own way, to enable him to work 16 hours a week he takes massive amounts of pain killers, and he doesn't do any manual work, but he feels he can still say, I am a working man which is really important to him.

We cannot get it through to the Doctor's or Solicitors that it's not like having a headache which you know is going to get better, so you have no alternative but to learn to cope with what life has thrown at you and to get on with as much as you can while you still can, because John doesn't know what else is going to go wrong and what other health scares he is going to experience.

I think that the solicitors and doctors should read forums like this, and then they would see what people with real strength of character have faced and overcome, mostly because they have no option but it still takes guts and a very strong will. I am abled bodied and I live in awe of all of the people on this site that have learnt to adapt to their new way of life. I take this opportunity to say how proud I am of all my new found friends, and thank you for all the help, advice, comments and understanding we have been given since joining this forum.

Maria

hi msb
thats really strange 20 years ago i had a pallet fall on my head, i was 21 and working as a casual for a german electrical box factory,the factory was new and not completely finished,i made tea for my colleagues who were stacking boxes on a shelf about 20ft up i waited at the botom of the ladder when i heard a shout! a mate of mine kicked an upended pallet off the shelf, ilooked up,ducked and it hit me square between my shoulder-blades,i was squashed to the floor with tea/coffee all over me
i was carried to the sickbay but didnt want to make a fuss and carried on working for ten/fifteen mins,then i felt pain and went home
i went to the doc that evening and he said i have a neck vertebrae out of place,he manipulated it back in with a twist of my neck whilst seated in a chair,the next morning i very stiffly got out of bed and rang the firm saying i couldnt make it in,a week later i went in for my wages and the personnel manager told me that because i was a temp i wasnt entitled to any money!
i told him i was taking them to court and it was an industrial accident,after months they sent me to harley st for a claim they offered me £750 and the solicitor told me to accept it which i did because i was due to go to college in london and was short of money
thinking back i was stupid not to fight for more but it was a long time ago,now in 2001 i fell from a height and am paralysed i wasnt insured so didnt get any compo

missb
My husband got hurt on the job in 1987. The insurance company from his work recommended a doctor and he ended up first getting a disc removed. WELL - the doctor screwed up (he couldn't find the right discs while in the O.R., so he just fixed what he thought was right and packed the nerves) and we had to file a malpractice case. Because of the screw up - another doc fused his back. Anyhow, we settled as he couldn't work and I couldn't support him and our young kids at the time. Boy, was that stupid............ We settled out of court on the incompetent doc, but the lawyer ended up with more that we got?! His former work paid him disability for 2 whole years. Whoopee!! The money we got in total was $150,000. That is long gone. He lives now with daily and nightly pain. Since then he has a dilaudid pump implanted in him. Actually he is on his fourth pump and that battery is slowing down. He will need another pump put in this year. He is now wheel chair bound. Life sucks for him. Social Security pays, but as may of you know, the increase in cost of living is not equal to the REAL cost of living, and then the Medicare pmts go up. We are making less this year than last and less yet from the year before.
The worst thing that happened from us settling with the jerk doctor was that he didn't lose his license and is still doing surgery on others that have no idea. If we could have waited for court, we could of got a decent amount of money, and the doctor might have lost his license. My husband was 30 years old when this all happened and now he is 49 next week. $150,000.00 - The joke is on us! My advise - Hang in there! Your life quality can only get worse (sorry to be so depressing). And damn it - Your life is worth a whole lot. Don't forget the expenses down the line. Being a gimp isn't cheap.

Hi,

John was offered £2,000.00 in 2000, then £19,000.00 2001, then £81,000.00 and in January this year he was offered £250,000.00. We were told not to accept it as we need a bungalow and as John has got progressively worse, he could need full time care, electric wheel chair etc etc etc.

The law firm gets 35% of his payout, but due to us arguing about the bungalow and adaptation work it will require, they have agreed not to take any money out from the cost of rehousing, so that should save us a bit.

In the past 8 years the cost of housing has gone up so much that to buy a bungalow in need of renevation we are looking at £265,000.00 plus about £60,000.00 to make it wheelchair friendly. So money just doesn't go anywhere any more. We are hoping that the final date in November is going to be the final hearing and then maybe we can get on with making the best of a bad lot.

At the moment we are really struggling for money, we have only had two very small interim payments and 35% of that was deducted to go to the solicitors. We started this claim before the no win, no fee and nothing taken out of your compensation claim law came in. We have to find the money to go to appointments wherever they are, and with the cost of fuel it is very expensive. Last summer we had to go to Harley Street, in London and it cost us over £200.00 for the day with everything. All of these appointments will be added in to the final payout, but over the last 8 years we have had to find the money.

Most of the Insurance companies, play on the fact that you need money, and hope that you will accept what ever they offer because you cannot afford to wait 8 years. Unfortunately, these things do drag on and it drives you mad, reading reports which are full of lies because they are trying to get out of paying up. The adverts on the TV are totally rubbish, if only it was as easy as they make it look.

So as I have said previously, make sure everything you tell the doctors is written down clearly and truthfully, so that at a later date a barrester cannot twist things, which is what keeps happening to us. Also keep a diary of every time you visit the hospital for visiting, appointments, mileage and anything to do with this injury, because years later you are expected to remember it all, so that they can include it in the schedule of damages and loss of earnings.

Maria

Hi,

Just wondering why are the legal eagles getting 35% of any payout. Where did they get this figure from? Who agreed this? Usually payouts are compensation plus legal costs. I will make enquiries with my employers who are also solicitors. As far as I know the Irish system is similar to the English system.

Lynne

Hi Lynne,

Because John's claim was not straight forward, (easy to win) we were told by claims direct that they had a specialist solicitors through a firm called Keystones, Keystones are the insurance company and they pay all the fees upfront and then claim 35% of John's compensation at the end and out of any interim payments. We have had two interims of £10,000.00 each and Keystone's have taken 35% on each occassion.

Back in 2002 John's case was awarded 100% judgement in his favour against his employers for making him do a dangerous task which was likely to cause injury. It is all still going on because the first legal exec was not doing his job properly and the defendants nearly had the claim struck out, luckily the judge refused but penalised us by saying that interest cannot be claimed by us from the defendant's insurer's from March, 2005 to the settlement date. Final hearing is 20th November, 2006. The firm of solicitors for us then put a new legal exec on the case and they have agreed to pay the interest due from March 2005 to the final hearing date so that we do not lose interest. (Thus avoiding a negligence claim from us)

They had John to sign an agreement in the begining, and when we thought it was only worth a couple of thousand it did not seem so bad, but as John has become progressively worse in a much shorter time than was anticipated, it now seems to be worth a lot more than we first thought.

One of the Barrester used told us in his opinion it was a lot of money to be paying out of John's claim, and when we mentioned this to our solicitors, they stopped using him and found a new Barrester.
We kicked up a fuss because we thought 35% was extortionate, as they are banding a figure of £750,000.00 which meant that Keystones would get about £265,000.00 out of the claim. Far more than they would have spent, so a Director of Keystones came to see us and said that they would not claim 35% of the rehousing costs or refurbishment costs.

Please find out any information you can for us as it is a huge sum to have to hand over out of the claim, it is the cost of a house.

If you need to know anything else send me a personal message and I will give you more details as we are totally fed up and confused by the whole thing, I seem to do more work than the firm of solicitors.

What is the difference between a legal exec and a solicitor?

Thanks.

Maria

Hi guys -

Michael currently has a compensation claim going on with CICA but I wondered if anyone could help.

Recently we found out that the guys that beat him up would get off with no charge as there was no evidence that it was their fault that Michael fell...

I think Michael will take this further but if he didn't, would Michael still be entitled to the full compensation to which he is entitled? Even though the guys are getting off, it doesn't make any difference to the fact that Michael will be in a wheelchair for life...

Thanks xx

Hi Maria

I admire your courage and strength and think you should be proud of all that you and John have achieved. Whilst it isn't easy, your determination has gotten you this far and I wish you all the best of luck for the hearing in November.

Your advice is greatly received. I have kept a note of everything as with so much going on, I tend to forget things.

Take care of yourself.


Georgie x

Hi Georgie,

Today we had a meeting with our Barrister, Solicitor, the Spinal Doctor acting on our behalf.

I found it most annoying that the Solicitor and Barrister have not really done any medical research into an incomplete spinal injury. The doctor had to keep going over things because they kept getting lost, for the money they earn, the least I think they can do is look these things up, that is what we have had to do. They found it hard to understand that most incomplete injuries are different with different symptoms and effects, autonomic, neuropathic and motor.

We also had to try and remember over the past 8 years the exact number of appointment, where, when, how much the parking cost, any toll bridge charges, etc etc. As you can imagine 8 years covers a hell of a lot off appointments. Also how many hospital visits I made when John was in hospital, parking costs, hospital phone cards, hospital tv cards, etc. It was really hard to think back over that time, when at the time your brain is elsewhere with your injured husband.

Our solicitor even had the cheek to ask me if I could write down all the postcodes as it would make it easier for him to calculate the mileage. I told him he had the same access to the files as us, and they had sent us to most of the appointment, so he could check his files.

Anyway, just a guide to what you must keep for ease in the future for special damages.

Good Luck with your claim.

Maria