Head or Brain Injury Compensation

Claiming for damage to the head or brain

This section covers acquired head and brain injuries, rather than defects which are present at birth. These are sometimes known as ABIs. If you have been the victim of a head or brain injury that occurred as part of an accident that was not your fault then you may be able to sue for compensation.

Head/brain classification

Head or brain injury claims cover both outer damage to the skull and inner damage to the brain itself. Hair, scalp, nose, dental, eye and facial injury claims are covered elsewhere, however. Brain damage is the most likely injury to enable a claim for head injury.

Head/brain injury compensation claims

If you wish to pursue a claim for a head or brain injury you should contact a solicitor to advance your case to a position in which it could be worthy of gaining you compensation. A medical report, most probably from a consultant neurosurgeon, will be required by your legal team in order to both prove your malady and to ascertain how much compensation you are likely to receive should you be successful. In addition to the medical report your solicitor will be able to rely on the guidelines that have been set down on judicial compensation cases. From these two sources it will be possible to calculate a rough figure of what you could receive for the first part of compensation. This is based on your suffering and is called general damages.

The other aspect of compensation you might be eligible for is remuneration of costs that have arisen because of your head/brain injury, for example any medical bills. Not only these but also money that you would have earned if you hadn’t been rendered unable to by your injury can be incorporated into the compensation payment, if your injury is serious enough to warrant loss of employment.

The kind of figures you could expect to receive from compensation for a head or brain injury are as follows:

• minor injury - £1,400 – if the issues surrounding your injury cleared up within a couple of weeks
• minor injury accompanied by limited brain damage - £1,400 to £8,000 – a slight injury that also caused insignificant brain damage with no ill after effects, except maybe headaches
• debilitating brain damage - £10,000 to £180,000 – brain damage that affected your ability to function normally and could have been detrimental socially and in employment; the risk of epilepsy and disability may have occurred
• serious brain damage - £180,000 to £260,000 – the most severe case of brain damage; serious disability may ensue, with communication functions and life expectancy possibly impaired.