Hand and finger injuries

Our client’s hand was caught in the rotary mechanism of a machine at his work, resulting in the loss of three fingers. Left with ongoing sensory loss, which has significantly restricted his day-to-day life, he also suffered a psychiatric injury. As he lives alone, he requires paid assistance for cleaning and various DIY tasks. He loved his job, and the accident has had a devastating effect on his life.

His employers’ insurers admitted liability, but failed to make settlement proposals. We promptly raised court proceedings once we had all the necessary expert medical reports.  As the action progressed, we also instructed reports to cost his care needs, employability prospects, prosthetic possibilities and pension loss. 

An offer of £400,000 was submitted and while well above our client’s expectations, it was rejected by him on our advice. We continued negotiations, and eventually the offer was increased to £650,000, which we were happy to recommend. 

He was totally bowled over by the result, which allowed him to move forward and improve his life in significant ways. 

Our client, a joiner who was employed by a housing association, suffered a serious hand injury at work when he was provided with an inadequately guarded cutting instrument. Although off work for some time, he was paid in full. He returned to less onerous duties but on the same rate of pay.

As his employer’s insurers failed to respond quickly enough to the claim, we raised a court action in the National Specialist Personal Injury Court. Liability was admitted, with an offer of £45,000 compensation. We advised our client to reject it because we were concerned that he should be appropriately compensated for the ongoing effect on his ability to carry out heavy manual work. We sought the advice of a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, which proved extremely useful as he explained to us more about the precise mechanism of the injury and the cause of any ongoing weakness. We felt we then had good ammunition to have a further round of negotiation with the client’s insurers. They made a slightly increased offer, which we again rejected. They then proposed settlement at £60,000, which we were very happy to recommend be accepted.