£45,000 Compensation Payout For A Penetrating Eye Injury

By Stephen Anderson. Last Updated 11th August 2023. A penetrating eye injury could change how you live your life. The pain and mental anguish from such a scenario can be hard for a victim to come to terms with. Suffering could be increased if the injury occurs due to an accident that wasn’t their fault. If you’ve found yourself in this position, we’re here to help. This guide explains how you could claim compensation. It includes an eye injury payouts example case study, to illustrate how claims are valued using two Heads of Loss.

Penetrating eye injury compensation

Penetrating eye injury compensation

Below, you’ll find the list of topics that we’re covering in this guide. Remember that you can contact Public Interest Lawyers whenever. And we’re able to connect you to No Win No Fee personal injury solicitors to discuss your potential claim. To get in touch, simply:

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  1. Common Eye Injury Types
  2. Can Eye Injuries Cause Financial Loss?
  3. What Causes A Penetrating Eye Injury?
  4. Specialist Settlement Calculations Of Your Claim
  5. Case Study: £45,000 Eye Injury Compensation
  6. No Win No Fee Eye Injury Claims
  7. Extra Advice On Eye Injury Payouts

Common Eye Injury Types

When it comes to an eye injury, the severity of the injury is crucial. Anything that results in your vision being impaired for a sustained period could be cause for concern. Eye injury examples could include the following:

  • Bruising around the eye (a black eye);
  • An eyelid cut or scratch;
  • An abrasion of the cornea;
  • A reddening of the sclera (known as subconjunctival haemorrhage)
  • A punctured eyeball;
  • Or acute hyphema (bleeding between the cornea and the iris).

Each of these injuries has the potential to impact your vision. In some cases, the injury could heal naturally within days. But in other cases, it might take weeks or months to recover fully. And in severe cases, the injury may leave you with impaired vision permanently. If the condition deteriorates, your vision could be lost altogether.

Hence, eye injury payouts could be worth claiming if they occur because of a third party’s negligence. The compensation you receive could help to ease concern about how you’ll afford care, prescriptions or financial losses due to not being able to work. Our helpful team is here to advise you further.

Can Eye Injuries Cause Financial Loss?

An eye injury could indeed have financial implications. For instance, driving could become an issue if your vision becomes impaired. You could have to rely on public transport, with the unpredicted travel costs adding up. In the meantime, you may still have to pay off your car insurance, leaving you in a further bind. This is one example of an injury leading to financial losses that could influence eye injury payouts. There are also many other ways that you could suffer financially due to an eye injury for example; loss of earnings due to not being able to work, needing a carer and having to pay carer costs and possibly needing help with cleaning, cooking or even gardening. 

Essentially, if you’re able to prove that you’ve suffered financial loss due to your injury, you could recover the costs. In the example provided, the claimant could use bus tickets/receipts to act as evidence. Ask our friendly team for guidance about how to recover your financial losses after suffering an eye injury.

What Causes A Penetrating Eye Injury?

Negligence claims for potential eye injury payouts would be based on meeting three criteria. First of all, a third party would have owed you a duty of care to protect your health and safety. Secondly, they would have breached that duty in some way, causing an accident or incident. And finally, the consequence of the breach of duty would be you suffering a penetrating eye injury.

Accidents in a Public Place

Public liability (PL) relates to the responsibility of a controller of land, premises or property has to protect its visitors’ or occupants’ health and safety. An accident in a public place could happen in a park, beach or restaurant, for example. Now, while the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 aims to prevent accidents and injuries in public places, they can still happen.

For example, you may be injured in a public place, such as a pub; you slip on an unmarked wet floor and fall hitting your eye on the corner of the table. Your eye and vision become damaged. And you file a public liability claim. If you suffer multiple injuries as a consequence, you have the right to file a multiple injury claim.

Workplace Accident

Employer’s liability (EL) relates to an employer being liable for suffering caused due to their negligence. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sets our provisions for the duty of care employers hold to prevent workplace accidents and employee injuries. Despite this Act, the chance of you being hurt while at work remains. One example of an employer breaching their duty of care might be a lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), causing you to suffer eye damage.

Road Traffic Accidents

And then we have a road traffic accident, or RTA, scenario. The Highway Code‘s guidelines (for motorists and vulnerable road users, like cyclists and pedestrians) require all road users to use the highways with a standard skill to avert accidents.

For instance, you might be involved in a crash that sees your head hit the front windshield and damage your eye in the process. Or a head-on collision could cause your vision to be impaired. If the accident was caused by another road user’s negligence, you could make a personal injury claim against their insurance policy. This is because they’ve breached their duty of care owed to you through The Highway Code.

Any of these areas of law would cover scenarios that allow you to make an eye injury claim based on negligence. Find out everything you need to know about negligence claims and eye injury payouts by calling us via the number above.

Specialist Settlement Calculations Of Your Claim

If you choose to proceed with a claim, you will be invited to undergo a medical assessment. This is very important to the claims process, as it could help answer critical questions about your injury, including:

  • How did you hurt your eye?
  • What was your vision like before your injury?
  • When did you realise that your vision was impaired?
  • How has your life been impacted?
  • What would be the recovery period for your vision to return to normal?

Answers to these questions help form settlement calculations for eye injury payouts. That figure comprises general damages and special damages. Fundamentally, general damages compensate you for the specific pain, suffering and loss of amenity due to your eye injury. 

Special damages compensate you for the additional financial consequences of your eye injury. These may include loss of earnings, public transport costs and also medical/optician expenditure. Having receipts and invoices to prove any costs that come as a result of your injury would be crucial. Please contact us to find out anything else you want to know about both general and special damages.

Case Study: £45,000 Eye Injury Compensation

Mrs Bryan, 39, worked as an angle grinder machine operator at an automotive company’s factory in Liverpool. She had been there for one week but had years of previous experience. 

She started a shift late one day having had a dentist appointment in the morning. Her line manager asked her to use an old grinder as the others were in use and advised that they didn’t have goggles for her. Mrs Bryan refused to work without the appropriate PPE. Her disgruntled manager found some old ones and asked her to use those. 

Not too long into her metalwork, one of the lenses from the goggles popped out and felt a sharp pain in her right eye. She stopped working, and, as she was receiving first aid, reiterated the accident to a colleague to note in the factory’s accident log book. After having the first-aider tell her she may have a metal shard in her eye, and still in pain, she took a taxi to the hospital.

Claiming Eye Injury Payouts

An ophthalmologist found that her cornea was damaged by the metal. She needed to have an operation as the metal had lodged in the cornea. She lost some of the vision in the eye. She could no longer work in her role as before. 

After speaking with a personal injury solicitor, she realised that she could claim. Though her former employer tried to argue that she had been aware of the dangers of using old goggles and machinery but continued anyway, they eventually admitted liability.

Mrs Bryan received over £45,000 in eye injury payouts. This consisted of £30, 000 for her physical injury. She recovered £15,000 in special damages. The below table shows a breakdown of her special damages.

Edit
Type Of Special Damages Includes: How Much?
Lost Earnings Costs of being unable to work while she recovered from her injury. Also cost of change of employment i.e. until found alternative work £11,300
Care Costs Needed help at home while adapting to change of vision. £1,500
Optical Care New prescription sunglasses and glasses. £500
Transport Costs Costs of using public transport for hospital and optician visits. £300
Counselling Sessions Six sessions altogether. £500
Help around the home Cleaner, gardener, cook etc £1,500

Mrs Bryan’s case is only to be used as an example. It is built on our past experiences to illustrate potential cases.

No Win No Fee Eye Injury Claims

If you have valid grounds to claim for a penetrating eye injury, then you could seek support from a solicitor. Our advisors are available to discuss your potential personal injury claim. If they determine you have a strong case, they may put you in touch with one of the No Win No Fee solicitors on our panel.

A solicitor from our panel may offer to support your data breach claim under a type of No Win No Fee agreement called a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). Under such an agreement, you won’t have to pay upfront or ongoing fees to your solicitor for their service. Also, you won’t need to pay your solicitor for the work they have completed on your case if it is unsuccessful.

If your claim is a success, then the No Win No Fee solicitor who supported your claim can subtract a legally capped percentage from the compensation awarded to you. This is known as a success fee.

For more advice on claiming penetrating eye injury compensation with a No Win No Fee solicitor, please get in touch with our advisors for free. To reach them, you can:

  • Call us on 0800 408 7825
  • Use our contact form to request a call-back
  • Or you can message us on our 24/7 live chat service

Extra Advice On Eye Injury Payouts

Click on any of the six additional links below if you want more details about eye injury payouts.

Head to our website to read about Public Interest Lawyers.

In addition, we discuss making a claim after suffering an accident while out shopping.

And we outline public liability claims for pothole injuries.

The NHS have a page dedicated to eye injuries.

They also explain how you could take a free eye test ahead of any injury-related claim.