£25,000 For A Broken Rib Injury: A Guide To Claiming Compensation
If you’ve sustained a broken rib and a third-party was responsible for your injury, you could be entitled to compensation. This article will help give you an understanding of personal injury claims, including whether or not you’re entitled to make one and how much compensation you could receive in a claim for a broken rib.
For more information, speak to one of our advisors today and see how our panel of personal injury lawyers could help you. Our lines are open 24/7 on 0800 408 7827 or you can use our live chat feature on the bottom right of your screen.
Select a Section
- A Guide To Rib Fracture Compensation – Single And Multiple Injuries
- Most Common Rib Injuries
- Can I Experience Financial Loss From A Rib Fracture?
- Calculating Care Claims For A Broken Rib Injury
- What’s The Process For Calculating Compensation?
- £25,000 For A Broken Rib: A Case Study
- Get A Free Estimate Of Your Compensation Payout
- Rib Fracture Claims No Win No Fee
- Why You Should Use The Best Personal Injury Solicitors
- Begin Your Claim
- Quick Information
A Guide To Rib Fracture Compensation – Single And Multiple Injuries
To help aid your understanding of making a personal injury claim for a broken rib, this article will start by explaining how to identify a rib fracture and outline some common accidents responsible.
Next, the article outlines some potential effects of sustaining a broken rib, including physical, psychological, and financial impacts. Injury-related expenses that can be claimed back are also listed, and the categories of general and special damages are explained. We’ve included an example case study of a ‘Miss Brown’ to illustrate these points further, based on our experience handling and valuing claims.
Our panel of personal injury lawyers could not only boost your claim’s chances of success but significantly ease the claims process. For a free consultation, please contact one of our advisors today to see how we could help you.
Most Common Rib Injuries
A broken rib entails a rib fracture that could range from a slight crack to a significant break, with symptoms including sharp pain, swelling and tenderness.
As ribs can’t be supported to aid healing like other broken bones can (e.g. with a splint or cast), they’re generally left to recover naturally. This typically takes 3 to 6 weeks, providing that you follow your doctor’s advice.
If third-party negligence was responsible for your broken rib, then you could be entitled to compensation. In order for a third-party to be held liable for your injury, they must have been in breach of a duty of care they owed to you. Some examples of bodies owing a duty of care include:
- Employers
- Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, your employer could be held liable for your broken rib if a breach in their duty of care led to you suffering the injury. A 2019 report by the Health and Safety Executive found that slips, trips, and falls accounted for a third of all major workplace injuries, with over 95% resulting in broken bones.
- If you’re injured in an accident at work, such as slipping on a leak that your employer ignored, you could be entitled to claim for a broken rib.
- Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, your employer could be held liable for your broken rib if a breach in their duty of care led to you suffering the injury. A 2019 report by the Health and Safety Executive found that slips, trips, and falls accounted for a third of all major workplace injuries, with over 95% resulting in broken bones.
- Those in control of public places
- Under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, those in control of public places are all subject to a duty of care under public liability. If you’re injured in a public place and third-party negligence is responsible, you could be entitled to compensation.
- If you tripped on a pothole on a public pavement and sustained a rib fracture, you could be entitled to claim against the council responsible for maintenance provided the hole was greater than 40mm in depth.
- Under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, those in control of public places are all subject to a duty of care under public liability. If you’re injured in a public place and third-party negligence is responsible, you could be entitled to compensation.
- Road users
- A road traffic accident (RTA) is any collision involving a vehicle or other road user. Between 2018 and 2019, RTAs resulted in over 157,530 casualties.
- If you sustained a rib fracture in a collision caused by a careless driver, they could be held liable for breaching the Highway Code.
- A road traffic accident (RTA) is any collision involving a vehicle or other road user. Between 2018 and 2019, RTAs resulted in over 157,530 casualties.
Can I Experience Financial Loss From A Rib Fracture?
After sustaining a broken rib through no fault of your own, it’s common to experience a financial shortfall in the wake of your accident.
From a loss of earnings due to unpaid sick leave to paying out of pocket for injury-related expenses, did you know that these costs could be recovered through your personal injury claim?
Special damages can be claimed to restore you to the financial standing you had prior to your accident, by compensating things like prescription fees and travel fees to appointments.
If you’d like to know more about the types of expenses you can recover, please get in touch with our friendly team.
Calculating Care Claims For A Broken Rib Injury
Care costs can also be claimed for through special damages, regardless of whether a professional carer was paid to assist you. If you’re experiencing incapacity as a result of your injury and you require assistance, you may receive help from family or friends (gracious care) or seek professional care.
Compensation for gracious care is calculated using the hourly rate of a local professional and reducing it on the basis that their service isn’t commercial. Whereas professional care compensation is calculated using invoices raised. For this reason, ensure you retain a paper trail to evidence your claim.
You could also claim for any care that your injury prevented you from providing as usual. For example, if you assist a vulnerable relative but were unable to do so after your accident, you could claim for the cost of a carer.
For more information, please contact one of our advisors today.
What’s The Process For Calculating Compensation?
In order to help value your claim, your personal injury lawyer will ask you to undergo a medical assessment with an independent specialist. If you decided to make a claim using our service, we can ensure that your appointment will take place as close to your home as possible by utilising our extensive network of medical experts.
At your appointment, expect to be physically examined and asked about your accident. The final report will act as evidence by corroborating details of how you sustained your injury. Therefore, it’s vital that you attend.
General Damages
Typically, there are two heads to a personal injury claim; general and special damages. To account for physical or psychological harm, general damages consider the severity of your injury and the extent of your recovery. For example, this could account for the pain of your broken rib, the subsequent anxiety you suffered, the overall impact it had on your life, and the treatment you had to endure.
Special Damages
Special damages can additionally be claimed to cover costs incurred as a result of your injury. These could include:
- Expenses
- Prescription fees, travel costs to medical appointments, and care payments
- Loss of earnings
- Financial shortfall from unpaid sick leave and predicted loss of future income
£25,000 For A Broken Rib: A Case Study
At the time of her accident, Miss Brown was walking to collect her daughter from school. However, after tripping on a defective manhole cover on the pavement, she was left with a broken rib from the fall.
After being treated by paramedics, Miss Brown was informed she had sustained a broken rib. As these types of injuries cannot be supported as other broken bones can, Miss Brown was simply advised to recover at home, using painkillers to ease the healing process. However, though most broken ribs take as little as 3 weeks to heal, Miss Brown’s recovery was prolonged by the anxiety and insomnia she suffered as a result of her accident.
As a full-time chartered accountant, Miss Brown was required to take 6 weeks off work. Within her recovery period, Miss Brown was also unable to perform usual duties like caring for her elderly mother.
To ensure she received the compensation she deserved, Miss Brown acquired the help of a personal injury lawyer. To build her case against the local water authority responsible for maintenance of the manhole, Miss Brown had a friend she was with at the time of her accident photograph the scene and collect witnesses’ contact details. Once her solicitor obtained witness statements and a report from an independent medical expert, Miss Brown then had a solid foundation of evidence to give her case the best chances of success.
The local water authority disputed the claim at first, in spite of the evidence presented to them. However, following a disclosure request by Miss Brown’s personal injury solicitor to see maintenance records, it was found that the water authority had recently conducted repairs to the manhole. However, those repairs had been defective, resulting in the trip hazard that Miss Brown fell victim to. They subsequently made Miss Brown a low offer of settlement. Her solicitor countered the offer and after some negotiation, a suitable settlement was agreed.
For her broken rib, Miss Brown was awarded £3,700 in general damages, based on the severity of her rib fracture and the extent of her recovery period. In addition to this figure, she was also awarded £3,050 for the anxiety and subsequent insomnia she suffered in the wake of her accident, which prolonged her recovery period and stayed with her after.
For injury-related costs incurred, Miss Brown was awarded around £18,250 in special damages. These expenses include travel, medical, care and loss of earnings:
Type of Special Damages: | Includes: | How Much? |
|---|---|---|
| Travel Expenses | To and from appointments/treatment | As the pain medication that Miss Brown was on caused drowsiness, she was unable to drive. For travel expenses, she was awarded £175. |
| Medications/Prescriptions | Prescriptions, treatment, physiotherapy, walking aids, etc. | Miss Brown recovered £125 for prescription painkillers. |
| Additional Care | Professional care at home, from family, childcare, etc. | In the first few weeks after her accident, Miss Brown’s injury left her unable to care for her young daughter. She was awarded £2,020 for childcare. Prior to her injury, Miss Brown was also a carer for her elderly mother, so she was awarded £3,995 for full-time professional care. As Miss Brown’s injury incapacitated her, she was awarded £1,990 for professional home care visits. |
Future Loss | Loss of Earnings, future loss of earnings, potential future care | As a chartered accountant, Miss Brown had to take 6 weeks off work in the wake of her accident. She was awarded £6,700 in loss of earnings, as well as an additional £3,000 for an attendance bonus she was unable to gain because of her injury. |
Domestic Tasks | Cleaning, cooking, gardening; areas that requires consistent attention | As Miss Brown was unable to complete usual domestic tasks, she was awarded £180 for a cleaner and £65 for a gardener. |
The case of Miss Brown is purely an example. It is based on our past experiences of handling and valuing claims and serves to illustrate how accidents can happen and how they are valued.
Get A Free Estimate Of Your Compensation Payout
If you’re ready to make a claim or want to know the level of compensation you could be entitled to first, we advise you to avoid using an online personal injury ‘compensation calculator’.
The payout estimates that they claim to provide can be inaccurate, as they are unable to consider the unique factors of your case. This may, in turn, lead people to believe they could get more money than they’re actually entitled to.
If you’d like free, impartial advice, get in touch with our expert team. They’re standing by to offer you all the free legal help and advice you may need.
Rib Fracture Claims No Win No Fee
If you’ve sustained a broken rib in an accident that wasn’t your fault, you could be considering making a claim. However, the financial risk associated can be deterring to many and it’s common to experience doubt in deciding to pursue compensation.
However, under a No Win No Fee agreement, you wouldn’t be expected to pay anything at all unless your case succeeded.
As part of these agreements, anyone is encouraged to make a claim, regardless of their financial standing. There aren’t any hidden fees to worry about and in the case that your solicitor wins your claim for you, a small ‘success fee’ will be deducted from your compensation. This is a legally-capped percentage of your settlement, so don’t worry about losing much of your payout.
Please contact one of our advisors to learn more.
Why You Should Use The Best Personal Injury Lawyers
Are you looking to claim for a broken rib? Attempting to navigate the legal system without the guidance of a professional can be confusing and you could risk losing out on the compensation you deserve.
Rather than taking a trip to your local high street to seek a solicitor, consider whether you could be restricting your claim’s chances of success by limiting your search to the local area. With technology allowing the legal system to be able to function virtually, solicitors can now connect with clients anywhere.
We recommend using online reviews as a means of narrowing your search. With first-hand experiences of past clients, you can see whether a service is recommended or not, as well as gaining an insight into solicitors’ success rates.
Our panel of personal injury lawyers offers a nationwide service, providing their clients with regular updates via telephone, email and even face-to-face meetings. To learn more about our services, please contact one of our advisors today.
Begin Your Claim
Whether you’re looking to make a claim for a broken rib or would like to learn more, contact one of our friendly specialist advisors today for a free consultation.
Here for you 24/7, you can call us on 0800 408 7827, write to us about your case by clicking here, or you can chat with us live by using the box in the bottom right corner.
Quick Information
Thank you for reading our guide to making a claim for a broken rib. We hope you’ve found it useful. Below, you can find some further resources you may find useful.
Guide by OL
Edited by RI