Can I Bring A Personal Injury Claim If I Have Suffered Scarring?

If you have suffered from scarring as a result of an accident, you can bring a Personal Injury claim. Here at Hodge Jones and Allen, we have a highly skilled team of specialist Personal Injury lawyers who can guide you through the process as efficiently as possible.

Bringing a Personal Injury claim can be considered going into the unknown for a lot of people. Therefore, before you pursue your claim, it is important to be well informed of the different steps of what is involved in a Personal Injury case to put you at ease.

Information we need from you

At the outset of a case, it is important for us to obtain clear colour photographs of the Client’s scarring. It is useful to show a chronology of the scarring from when the accident first occurred to a most recent photograph. This allows us to see the development of the scarring and whether it has improved or gotten worse. As the case progresses later down the line, we may ask the Client to send us some further updated photographs of the scarring and we may have professional photographs of their scarring taken.

Understandably, depending on where the scarring is on the Client’s body and how visible it is, it can be very overwhelming for the Client and can make them feel very self-conscious. We would ask the Client to provide us with a detailed account of how the scarring has affected them emotionally and psychologically and the impact on their relationships and daily life.

We would also ask the Client whether they use any creams to treat the scarring and whether they use any make – up to cover it up.

Valuing the claim

Valuating the losses incurred

We will put together a schedule of the Client’s “Special Damages”, which are the losses that the Client has incurred as a result of the accident.

Here are some examples of “Special Damages”:

• Cost of travel to medical appointments in relation to the accident, i.e. the cost of the Client’s train ticket to see a scarring specialist at the hospital
• Loss of earnings, i.e. the Client has had to take 7 days off work as a result of the accident as they are unable to work due to the pain they are experiencing
• Domestic care and assistance, i.e. the Client is in so much pain that they need their partner’s help with the cleaning, cooking and washing
• Medical expenses, i.e. the cost of moisturiser for the scarring

Valuating the Injury

Assessing the value of an injury (known as “General Damages”) is never an exact science. Luckily, Personal Injury lawyers have many useful tools at their disposal to help them value the injuries as accurately as possible:

• Medical evidence that we have obtained from the medical expert to assist with your case
• Judicial College Guidelines (the most up to date version)
• Case Law which is similar in injuries and circumstances to your case

Medical Evidence

We will obtain a complete set of the Client’s GP and hospital records. We would review these records in depth to see what the opinion of the medical professionals is about the Client’s scarring and whether any further treatment is recommended to treat the scarring.

We will then outline the accident circumstances and injuries of the Client to the Consultant Plastic Surgeon and we will provide them with the Client’s medical records for their review. They will then see the Client for a medical appointment and they will prepare a medical report for us. The report usually sets out the prognosis period for when the scarring should heal, whether the accident is a direct cause of the scarring they have suffered and any recommendations for further treatment.

Judicial College Guidelines

In order to assess the value of your claim, we would then refer to The Judicial College Guidelines. These are a set of guidelines which help Personal Injury solicitors assess the financial value of an injury in a Personal Injury claim.

Here is an example extract from the Judicial College Guidelines for assessing “Scarring to other parts of the body”:

The Judicial College Guidelines (formerly JSB Guidelines) The Judicial College Guidelines, 11 Scarring to Other Parts of the Body
………….Where the scarring is not to the face or is not usually visible then the awards will tend to be lower than those for facial or readily visible disfigurement.
A single noticeable scar, or several superficial scars, of leg(s) or arm(s) or hand(s), with some minor cosmetic deficit. £2,370 to £7,830 ¹

Case Law

We will also need to look at previous case law in order to assess the value of the Client’s scarring, where the facts, injuries and awards are similar in nature to the case that we are assessing.

Try our personal injury compensation calculator now to see how much you could claim.

If you have suffered a life changing injury such as scarring as a result of an accident and you are pursuing a personal injury claim, call our highly experienced specialist solicitors today on 0808 252 5231 to talk through your situation with us. Alternatively, you can request a call back online.

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¹JCD 16th Ed.; Scarring to Other Parts of the Body