Making a Claim - Industrial Disease
This page sets out the steps we will take to ensure that you receive the maximum compensation as a result of your condition. It is an indication only and may alter as your case progresses to take into account changes to your situation, circumstance and information available.Stage 1 - establish who is responsible for your condition and why
Liability has to be considered as a first step. This means that we have to investigate who is to blame for your condition and why. We will visit you at home to take a detailed statement from you dealing with your working history and describing how and when you were exposed to harm. We will also contact your witnesses. In complex cases, engineering evidence may have to be commissioned to support your claim. One of the most difficult tasks is to identify the relevant employer and insurer at the time of exposure. Detailed investigations are undertaken to locate the relevant company. In exceptional circumstances we may be able to pursue your claim even where an employer and or its insurer are no longer trading or in existence.
Stage 2 - evaluate likelihood of winning compensation
Once we have identified the appropriate third parties and considered the evidence of exposure, we will advise you whether we believe that you stand a reasonable prospect of proving that they were to blame for your condition. If so, we will gather together the medical evidence by obtaining your hospital and GP notes, scans and x-rays. We will commission a medical report from a consultant who is an acknowledged expert in industrial disease work and who is accustomed to providing medico-legal reports.Stage 3 - working out the value of your claim
We will ask you to provide details in support of your claim for financial loss. We will take into account loss of income and out of pocket expenses incurred both past and future and which are reasonably attributable to your condition.
Stage 4 - negotiating with a view to an out of court settlement
Once we have gathered the evidence we will value your claim. At that time, we may discuss the possibility of approaching the insurers for the other side with a view to trying to settle your claim by way of negotiation. No proposals will be made to the other side without your express and informed consent.
Stage 5 - no satisfactory offer
If we are unable to resolve your claim by way of negotiation, we will consider registering your claim with the court (the issue of proceedings). We will only recommend the issue of proceedings if your claim continues to stand reasonable prospects of success.
Once you authorise the issue of proceedings, we will instruct a barrister who is an expert in disease work to draft the appropriate paperwork. Your claim must be issued at court within the three year period which runs from the date your diagnosis was confirmed. This means that it is important that we should make good use of whatever time is at our disposal. Delay prejudices any claim.
Once your claim is issued, the papers will be sent to the other side. They will then prepare their defence and the court will fix a timetable to which we will work with a view to proceeding to trial. However, the vast majority of claims are resolved without the need for a trial.
In the time between the issue of proceedings and the trial date, the evidence on both sides will be perfected and exchanged.
From time to time, we may instruct your barrister to advise on the evidence, liability, value of the claim or procedural matters.
You will be sent copies of all paperwork received from the barrister and our experts. We may also arrange for you to meet with the barrister if required or for a detailed discussion about the best way forward for your case.
Stage 5 - going to court
We will only recommend that you proceed to trial if we believe that you stand a reasonable prospect of success. Where we do end up going to court, each step of the process will be fully explained to you beforehand and we will continue to support you throughout.
