Personal Injury Solicitors

The claimant made a formal complaint about the conduct of her fellow employee, following which a formal disciplinary investigation was carried out which led to her colleague being dismissed.

The colleague’s mother also worked at the home and she repeatedly discussed her daughter’s disciplinary case with others within the earshot of the claimant and made comments about the claimant to the extent that it became clear that the claimant’s identity as the whistle-blower in relation to her daughter’s behaviour, had been made known by her employers.

As a result, the claimant suffered panic attacks and psychiatric injury. Despite this continuing unacceptable behaviour, the care home simply turned a blind eye and took no action to address this and allowed the claimant to continue to be subjected to many months of bullying and harassment from her fellow employee.

Following the assault, it became apparent that the local authority had been fully aware prior to this incident that this person had previously displayed hostile behaviour but had failed to properly assess the risk he posed to members of staff or to put in place appropriate measures to ensure staff were kept safe or to minimise the risk. In addition, his employers failed to put in place an adequate system to address the impact of the assault upon him following the incident, resulting in an exacerbation in his psychiatric injury.

Our client, JL was a widow in her eighties, who prior to her accident was still very much active and independent. She would walk into her local town to the shops every day. She was able to care for herself and did all her own cooking from scratch, household cleaning, laundry and lawn mowing, without assistance from others.

On the day of her accident, she attended an appointment at her local hospital and sat in the waiting room with her daughter. When she was called through for her appointment, her daughter told the Assistant that they would need to hold her arm when walking from the waiting room, to provide her with some support, which they then did. No assistance or support was made available to her to help her back to the waiting area, so she felt she had to make her own way back. As she walked along the hospital corridor towards the waiting area, she placed her hand on a hospital machine for support, which had been left in the corridor with the wheel of the machine turned outwards. This made the walkway very narrow and as she walked along, she caught her foot on the out-turned wheel, causing her to trip and fall. She struck her head on the wall as she fell and landed heavily on her left hip.

X-rays confirmed a fracture of her left femur. The hospital equipment was immediately removed from the corridor after her accident and she was advised that it should not have been left there. As a result of the accident, she entirely lost her independence, significantly impacting upon her quality and enjoyment of life.

Following medical evidence, the defendant put forward an offer to settle. After further negotiations and discussions, we were able to achieve an increased settlement on behalf of our client to reflect the significant impact the accident had on her quality of life and wellbeing.

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Our client was experienced in their field, having worked as an Offender Manager/Probation Officer within the prison service for around 10 years when she was transferred to a new team. The atmosphere of the new team was boisterous and our client found they were the subject of many personal and childish remarks.

One particular individual’s behaviour escalated, becoming unacceptable and bullying in nature. The individual began to mock her religious beliefs and forced her to watch inappropriate video footage stored on his phone.

When our client complained about the individual’s behaviour, she had hoped it would make the behaviour stop. Unfortunately, however it led to our client being excluded from the team and suffering further harassment designed to humiliate her.

As a result of experiencing this persistent and inappropriate behaviour, our client was forced to take time off work with a psychiatric injury.

We obtained medical evidence to establish the extent of the psychological injury before approaching the defendant to enter into settlement negotiations, despite their denial of liability.

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Our client had been out celebrating and was returning home. In order to get home she needed to walk along an unlit road that didn’t have a path. To ensure her safety she took a couple of precautions including using a torch and walked as close to the side of the road as possible to avoid danger. Unfortunately, a driver was less careful whilst driving along the road and struck our client at speed from behind.

Our client sustained multiple injuries. The injuries included a brain injury which affected her eyesight and caused headaches for a long time after the initial injury. The insurance company for the driver admitted liability which allowed us to secure funding for any further rehabilitation our client required.

Rather than showing that the injuries were caused by the defendant, we instead had to show that the extent and duration of the multiple injuries our client sustained had caused significant harm and required extensive treatment. To assist us with our investigation, we gathered a number of medical reports from a range of different medical disciplines ranging from neurological to orthopaedic. We were able to secure a six-figure settlement for our client which included the cost of the treatment recommended by our neuro-otologist in their report.

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Our client alleged his psychiatric injury was caused by the negligence of his employers by giving him an unrealistic workload and level of responsibilities over several years, increasing the burdens on him at work while removing the resources and assistance needed to do his job effectively. He was working excessive hours including on-call time at weekends and evenings and was unable to take his full holiday allocation.

His employers were handed a letter from his GP warning of the toll work pressures were having on his health. He was referred to occupational health and an action plan drawn up to improve the situation. Unfortunately, that action plan was never implemented by his manager, who was distracted by her own grievance against her manager. His condition deteriorated, leading to his breakdown six months later and his permanent ill-health retirement, over 10 years early..

During the ten years it took to bring Tom’s claim to its successful conclusion there were various delays over which Brachers had no control; some by the courts but also delays and breaches by the defendant’s insurers and their solicitors. They did make one offer of £100,000 to settle six years earlier, which Brachers considered inadequate and client therefore rejected.

Following a retrial our client was awarded the revised principal sum of £175,343.11 before interest and enhancements. However, because the claimant had matched and beaten his previous offers, he was awarded a 10% enhancement to his damages and an enhanced rate of interest of 8% per year from the date of his original offer. Our client’s revised award was just short of £300,000.

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Our client, Mr X, worked for a large chain of supermarkets for a number of years and had become the night shift duty manager. A new member of staff joined and showed themselves to be rude, disrespectful and would not show up to work on time.

Our client attempted, in their capacity as night duty manager, to rectify the issues but the individual’s behaviour did not change and they became increasingly hostile. Although the issues had been reported to Mr X’s employer, the chain had done nothing to address the concerns raised.

The claim was taken on by Mark Gore, Senior Associate, who has acted on a number of psychological injury cases.

We were able to show that on at least four separate occasions the individual threated our client and made them fear for their life. Therefore, the basis of the claim fell under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and it was brought against the supermarket who were vicariously liable for the actions of their employee.

In the end a five-figure settlement was reached for the psychological injury. This meant our client could now move on with life and begin to heal from his ordeal without the stress of further litigation.

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Our client was a delivery driver who was carrying out his deliveries in a rural Kent village. His satnav had taken him to the wrong address, however, the owner of the property directed him to the correct address, which took him over a level crossing. He arrived at the level crossing and pressed the button which opened the gate, allowing him to cross. Assuming all was clear, he proceeded to cross when his vehicle was struck by a train travelling at high speed. The impact caused our client to sustain a mild brain injury, fractured shoulder blade, psychological injury and lacerations to the face.

While investigating the matter, we became aware the Rail Investigation Bureau (RAIB) was investigating the same incident and had issued urgent safety advice to Network Rail regarding the design of level crossing.

Although the full report was not yet completed, we carried out our own research into the suitability of Power Operated Gate Opening (POGO) systems on level crossings. Our investigations revealed that Network Rail had changed from the manual opening system to the power operated one.

After some negotiation, we were able to settle the matter with Network Rail, with our client obtaining a five-figure settlement.

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Natalie Marsh, a legal executive in Brachers’ Personal Injury team, took on a claim after Mrs S fell due to a pothole in the road while walking to work. Mrs S sought advice on an offer she had received from the council’s insurers.

Natalie carefully considered the evidence and recommended to Mrs S that further reports were obtained from specialist medical experts. These provided more supportive medical evidence, detailing the nature of our client’s injuries, and separating out the effects of a pre-existing, underlying condition and the weakness in her ankle caused by the accident.

We advised Mrs S to put forward a new offer to the council, which was considerably higher than the one she had first received. In response, they made a five-figure counteroffer.

Mrs S was highly satisfied with the outcome of the claim and was grateful to Brachers for helping to ensure her compensation was reflective of the significant injury she had suffered.

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Our client, SC, a school estates director, was on holiday with her husband on a two-ship 14 night cruise. One morning, while at sea on route to Mexico, she was in the breakfast hall when she suddenly slipped on something on the floor, causing her to fall forwards, landing heavily on her right side. She was immediately in severe pain, having badly injured her shoulder.

X-rays confirmed she had suffered a multiple compound fracture of her right shoulder at the proximal humeral joint. We were able to achieve a significantly higher settlement of the claim. SC was extremely happy with the outcome, rating her experience of Brachers as excellent and having exceeded her expectations.

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The permanent injury meant he was unable to return to his former work. We successfully obtained compensation for his injuries and financial losses, acting on a no win, no fee basis.

A priority in the case was dealing with allegations against our client, WB, by his employer. Although they admitted primary liability, the employer alleged there should be a one-third deduction for contributory negligence but through the evidence we gathered, we were able to negotiate a significantly higher settlement of the claim on his behalf.

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Brachers has secured a five-figure settlement-sum for a young bar worker who suffered severe burns whilst she was acting under instruction of her employers.

On conclusion of the claim, our client wrote to Brachers to say: “I will recommend you to anyone I come across and thank you for being there for me. I will miss speaking to you but at the same time I’m so relieved it’s settled”.

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Brachers has settled a mesothelioma claim for a six-figure sum for an Australian widow in UK proceedings, after the case was previously dropped by another leading firm.

Partner and asbestos disease specialist, Jeremy Horton, said: “Our client is the Australian widow of a former UK Cape asbestos insulation lagger at BP oil refinery, Isle of Grain in Medway, Kent. Tragically he died after a two-and-a-half-year battle with the asbestos disease, mesothelioma.

“Passage of time and COVID made the case more difficult to investigate at times but that we have been able to provide for his widow financially, means that we have done justice to his legacy.”

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