If you’ve suffered an eye injury from an accident you weren’t liable for, causing symptoms such as blurred vision or visual deterioration, you may be able to claim compensation. Eye pain can greatly impact the quality of your life, which is why you may want to see if you can make a personal injury claim. This guide will show you how using the services of a No Win No Fee eye injury lawyer could result in you receiving compensation.
We will answer important questions like:
- How can I claim eye injury compensation?
- How can a personal injury lawyer help me with my claim?
- In what instances could I claim for an eye injury from an accident at work?
- What is the personal injury claims time limit?
- What are the potential symptoms of an eye injury?
- How much compensation for an eye injury could I receive?
- What is the claims process?
Claiming Compensation For An Eye Injury
Our advisors offer free legal advice, so please contact us if you have queries, such as wanting to know how much you could receive for an injury caused by clinical negligence. We are available 24/7, so you can do this at a time that suits you using the details below.
- Call us on 0800 073 8801
- Email us the details of your injury to office@accidentclaims.co.uk
- Write to us using the Live Chat service on the right-hand side of your screen
- Contact us on our website
Read on to learn more about how an eye injury lawyer could help you make a personal injury claim.
Select A Section
- What Is An Eye Injury?
- Causes of Eye Injuries
- Eye Injuries In The Workplace
- Medical Negligence Causing Eye Injuries
- Head And Facial Trauma Injuries
- How Does An Eye Injury Lawyer Calculate Your Payout?
- Work With An Eye Injury Solicitor Under A No Win No Fee Agreement
- Talk To An Expert
- Useful Pages
What Is An Eye Injury?
An eye injury can range from mild inconvenience to permanently altering aspects of your eyesight, such as your central vision. It can be a singular injury or, in some cases, one of the complications to a more serious one, such as a head injury.
If you suffer from a complete loss of vision caused by damage to your optic nerve, for instance, it completely changes your quality of life. Even less serious injuries, such as a traumatic retinal detachment, can take months to heal.
The Time Limit For Eye Injury Claims
If you are eligible to file an eye injury claim, you will need to do so within the relevant time limit. The Limitation Act 1980 dictates that most claims will need to be filed within three years of the date of the accident. A failure to do so may result in your case becoming time-barred. However, there are some exceptions to this.
For example, if a child suffers an eye injury due to a relevant third party’s negligence, they could not claim for an eye injury themselves until they turn 18. Therefore, the limitation period would pause until they reach this age. During the paused period, an appropriate adult, such as a family member or solicitor could act as a litigation friend for the child and bring a claim on their behalf.
Should no claim be filed during this period, and the child then turns 18, they would have until their 21st birthday to bring a claim.
There are some exceptions that apply to those who lack the mental capacity to make their own claim too.
To learn more about the time limit for eye injury claims, please contact an advisor. They will be happy to help you.
Causes of Eye Injuries
You could be looking for an eye injury lawyer for many reasons. Just as there are many potential symptoms, there are also many common causes. Causes of eye injuries include:
- Participating in sports. For instance, injuries like this could be caused by colliding with other players or being struck by a basketball.
- Blunt force trauma to the head and/or eye.
- Damage caused by chemicals.
- Straining your eye from coughing, vomiting or lifting a heavy object.
Regarding making a successful personal injury claim, you would need to prove that third party negligence led to the injury. For you to be able to receive compensation, these three criteria need to be met:
- Firstly, the third party must have a duty of care towards you.
- Secondly, the third party must have done something that has breached this duty of care causing an accident or incident.
- The accident or incident must have led to your injury.
It’s only when all three of these have been met that you could be able to successfully hire an eye injury lawyer to make a claim.
If you’re unsure if your injury meets all of the above criteria, don’t worry. You can call our advisors for free legal advice, and they can inform you in just a few minutes if you’re able to claim.
Eye Injuries In The Workplace
This section will highlight the kind of injuries you could suffer at a workplace due to employer negligence. Employers have a duty of care to all of their employees to make sure, within reason, that the facilities provided are safe and secure enough to be used.
Risks can come from many different areas: any faulty or insufficient mechanism or material could potentially cause an injury. The employer’s duty of care is illustrated in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
If you’ve been injured due to an accident caused by faulty work equipment that your employer was aware of, you may be able to claim compensation due to employer negligence.
You may be wanting to use an eye injury lawyer due to an accident at work caused by:
- Falling from a faulty ladder. This could cause a head injury, leading to you suffering from visual impairment and a sensitivity to bright light. If your employer was aware it was faulty or didn’t ensure it was safe to use, you could claim.
- Using unsafe work equipment, such as defective eye googles your employer has provided you. A serious chemical burn could cause blindness, or prolonged exposure to toxic fumes could result in you needing medical attention.
- Being asked to carry an object that is too heavy. This could lead to you slipping and injuring yourself.
Regarding what the employer could do to prevent potential injuries, they would need to adhere to their duty of care by taking all reasonable measures to review the worksite for potential hazards.
If you injure yourself despite the employer doing everything reasonably practicable, you wouldn’t be able to claim compensation. To know more about the types of reportable incidents in a workplace, visit the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website.
Medical Negligence Causing Eye Injuries
You could be looking to claim compensation due to medical negligence. When we’re in the care of doctors or medical professionals, if their actions go below the expected standard of their profession, it can cause us serious health issues.
The duty of care of a medical professional revolves around them performing tasks to the expected standard required. Importantly, it doesn’t mean that they can’t make mistakes — mistakes can skills happen and not be a consequence or cause of medical negligence.
However, you may be able to claim if you suffer unnecessary harm caused by medical negligence instead of an expected potential medical complication.
Incidents that could lead to you contacting an eye injury lawyer due to medical negligence include:
- Being misdiagnosed. Misdiagnosis is not always medical negligence. However, if a medical professional misdiagnoses you despite clear symptoms indicating the true problem, this could be medical negligence. This could lead to you suffering eye pain and corneal abrasions due to the length of time taken to find the correct diagnosis.
- A surgical error. For example, you could receive substandard laser eye surgery that could cause permanent symptoms, such as visual acuity.
- An unnecessarily prolonged procedure due to a foreign body being stuck in your eye. This could put further strain on your body, resulting in you potentially losing sight in one eye.
You could also suffer from clinical negligence due to a negligent prescription error or a GP giving you negligent medical advice. It isn’t just these types of injuries you can claim for, however. If you’ve experienced a cancer misdiagnosis due to negligence, or you want to claim for general hospital negligence, you can contact us now for free legal advice.
Head And Facial Trauma Injuries
Injuries caused by head and facial trauma can cause complications to your eye. Many of the bones in your face are structured around your eyes. Therefore, if you suffer an injury to parts of your face, such as the zygomatic bone or temporal bone, it can lead to an eye injury.
These facial injuries could be caused by a road traffic accident. Every road user in England, Scotland and Wales has a duty of care to one another under The Highway Code. The Code illustrates safe and secure conduct while using the roads and, due to doing this, also clarifies that any action that goes against these rules could be deemed reckless driving. If you’ve been a victim of someone else’s reckless driving, it could be argued that they’ve breached their duty of care.
Examples of facial injuries that could lead to contacting an eye injury lawyer include:
- Suffering damage to your nasal and maxilla bones due to another car swerving out in front of you at high speed without indicating.
- Needing medical attention due to being knocked off your bike by a careless driver who drove into the roundabout at the incorrect moment. As a result, you fall on the floor and suffer a skull fracture.
- A lorry driver not checking their mirrors, meaning their vehicle slams into yours. This could cause you to suffer visual impairment leading to light sensitivity and, in extreme cases, blindness.
How Does An Eye Injury Lawyer Calculate Your Payout?
There are two potential heads of claim in any personal injury claim.
- General damages relate to the psychological and physical pain caused, as well as the general decline in your quality of life.
- Special damages relate to the financial losses caused by the injury.
The amount of compensation you could receive depends on the nature of your injury and how negatively it’s affected your life.
You may be wondering, “How much general damages compensation could I receive after I’ve suffered an eye injury?” The Judicial College has analysed many general damages payouts, comparing them to the nature and extremity of the injury. As such, they’ve been able to create compensation brackets that can indicate the compensation you could receive. Our advisors use this information to provide you with as reliable a compensation estimate as possible.
Below is a list of injuries and their respective compensation bracket. The Judicial College provided these figures.
| Type of Injury | Amount of Compensation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Eye | In the region of £268,720 |
(b) Total blindness in both eyes. |
| Eye | £95,990 to £179,770 | (c) (i) This injury has resulted in loss of sight in one eye with reduced vision in the eye remaining. This bracket is for if there is a significant chance of further deterioration in the remaining eye. |
| Eye | £63,950 to £105,990 | (c) (ii) Injuries in this bracket revolve around only one eye being fully functional. However, the issues with the remaining eye are less severe, such as double vision, etc. |
| Eye | £54,830 to £65,710 | (d) The complete loss of one eye. |
| Eye | £49,270 to £54,830 | (e) This bracket is for people who have suffered sight loss in one eye only. This award takes into account the potential risks of sympathetic ophthalmia. |
| Eye | £23,680 to £39,340 | (f) This injury would lead to serious but partial loss of vision in one eye without a serious risk of the same or similar happening to the other. |
| Eye | £9,110 to £20,980 | (g) Minor vision impairment in one or both eyes on a permanent basis. This includes cases where there is double vision. |
| Eye | £3,950 to £8,730 | (h) This bracket includes minor injuries caused by incidents like being struck in the eye or exposure to fumes, such as smoke. |
| Brain | £150,110 to £219,070 | (c) (i) This bracket includes brain damage that causes a moderate to severe intellectual deficit and an effect on sight. |
What Else Can An Eye Injury Lawyer Help You Claim For?
Your eye injury lawyer will also check if you’re able to claim for special damages. They relate to any financial losses you’ve suffered due to the injury. Therefore, you could claim for things like:
- Loss of earnings
- Loss of future earnings
- Travel costs
- Prescription/medicine expenses
- Care costs, such as if you needed professional care while you recovered or even gracious care from your family or friends
- Recreational activities that you’re now unable to attend
You will need evidence, such as receipts, invoices and bank statements, to prove the value of the losses you’re looking to claim. Without this, you may only receive a partial amount or none of the compensation you’re looking to recover due to financial loss.
Work With An Eye Injury Solicitor Under A No Win No Fee Agreement
Working with legal representation on a No Win No Fee basis means that you agree on a Conditional Fee Agreement with them. Therefore, you would only pay the legal fees under certain circumstances. This means that:
- Your personal injury lawyer will not request payment of their legal fees, either during the claims process or beforehand.
- Instead, they will only take legal fees from you once your claim has been successful. This will be a small, legally capped percentage taken from your compensation.
- They will also not request any legal fees from you if your claim is unsuccessful.
What’s more, you don’t need to worry about them wasting your time as they will only take your case if there’s a reasonably good chance your claim will be successful.
Talk To An Expert
Want to see if you can use an eye injury lawyer to receive compensation? If so, contact us using the details below.
- Call us on 0800 073 8801
- Email us the details of your injury using office@accidentclaims.co.uk
- Write to us using the Live Chat service on the right-hand side of your screen
- Contact us on our website for a callback
Useful Pages
For more useful information about personal injury claims, please see below.
To know more about eye injuries and infections, read this NHS guidance.
Want more information about corneal abrasions? If so, read our guide.
If you’d like to know more about how to treat a chemical injury to the eye, read our guide.
Had an allergic reaction to an eyelash extension? If so, and you want to see if you can claim, visit our website.
To see if you can claim for a scarring injury, view our guide.
To discover more about claiming for serious eye injuries at work, take a look at our guide.