Securing £550k in damages for a brain injury caused by a road traffic collision

Oliver Chapman, a specialist personal injury lawyer, obtained a settlement of £550,000 for a client who suffered a significant brain injury, following a road traffic collision.

At the time of the accident, the claimant was a university undergraduate.

The accident occurred during the hours of darkness, outside a corner shop, following a sports team social. The claimant was struck by a Ford Fiesta as he crossed the road, with his body being thrown about 20 metres down the road, colliding with a lamp post. The defendant, who was driving the car, subsequently sped away.

The claimant sustained moderately severe brain injury. An intracranial bolt was inserted into his brain, and he was ventilated on a life support machine in the early stage to allow his brain to recover naturally.  He was discharged from hospital into his parents’ care after 12 days.  He was required to repeat his second year of university.  He managed thereafter to complete his degree, but only with support from the university.

He has been left with several ongoing symptoms from the brain injury and resulting personality change, including ongoing fatigue, right sided hearing loss, right sided tinnitus, headaches, balance disturbance, noise intolerance, a change to his personality making him short tempered and snappy, heightened anger, difficulties with short-term memory, problems with decision making, difficulties with problem solving, reduced ability to multitask, reduced motivation and powers of concentration, difficulties with social monitoring, problems with new learning and speech disturbance.

The case was complex due to a number of factors, including:

• The claimant had no memory of events
• The criminal prosecution was delayed on multiple occasions
• Although there was CCTV footage, the camera did not capture the moment of the collision
• There were two defendants to contend with. Defendant one was driving the car and defendant two was the insurer of the car. Whilst the car was insured with Admiral, the driver was neither the registered keeper, nor a named driver on the policy
• Witnesses provided varying accounts of what had happened. Some of those accounts were inconsistent with the findings of accident reconstruction reports.

Over three years, Oliver spent significant time painstakingly reviewing evidence and seeking expert insight to piece together exactly what happened.

During this time, the first defendant was subject to criminal proceedings, where he entered a guilty plea to the charge of driving without due care and attention only on the day of his trial. Oliver attended the trial and noted that the Magistrate made several helpful observations.

He observed to the defendant’s counsel that the accident occurred on a stretch of road he is very familiar with.  It is an area with high student accommodation.  Parking is a “nightmare”.  The road is restricted by parked cars on both sides. There was a high concentration of students in the area and these factors would be taken into account in sentencing.

The defendant’s counsel noted that the defendant was driving around 30mph.  He said that was not in excess of the speed limit, but he accepted that it was “probably excessive for the road”.

In his closing remarks, the judge once again reiterated that it was clear that the defendant was driving too quickly, albeit within the speed limit.

Despite this, the insurer signalled its intention to deny liability on the basis that the claimant jumped out in the path of the first defendant.  It did not matter, in their view, whether the first defendant was driving at 30mph or 20mph, the collision would have been unavoidable. They were, however, prepared to make an offer of £100,000 which would expire after 21 days if not accepted. We advised the claimant to reject this.

Proceedings were served and in the insurer’s defence, liability was denied in an aggressive and robust manner.  At the same time, however, the insurer made a Part 36 offer of £500,000.

Following negotiations, the case settled for £550,000, which reflected an anticipated reduction on account of contributory negligence and the claimant’s wish to draw a line under matters.

We advised the claimant on the benefits of a personal injury trust and put him in touch with an IFA company which specialises in advising personal injury claimants regarding the investment of their damages awards.

Oliver Chapman  specialises in personal injury cases.  If you would like to ask Oliver a question about a potential case, or if you have a general query about any personal injury, contact Oliver on 01892 701234 in confidence. We offer no win no fee agreements on the vast majority of our clinical negligence and personal injury cases.

You can read a similar client story here.