Would you persue a claim for compensation?

[EvangelicalAboutButteredToast]

I’ll be honest. My inclination is no, but I’d love an opinion.

My child was injured whilst in the care of a paid for holiday camp. They were injured and will be left with a life long scar. The company has accepted responsibility and we will soon be in receipt of a report that list how they fell outside of their safeguarding rules which are also covered by a professional body.

They have told me they are anticipating being sued by us. If I go forward with a compensation claim it’s likely to impact my child’s ability to go forward with the hobby they love. Hence my reticence.

Does anyone know if I pursued a claim what the likely outcome might be? Any money would be put into the child’s bank account. My partner is considering one of those no win/no fee companies, but again that feels risky.

What happened? Is your child permanently injured by the incident?

What sort of life long scar? Do you feel you need compensation?

The sort that’s on the face and two inches long.

They have admitted they are responsible. We will be getting a report this week.

Permanently and obviously scarred yes. Injured as in a broken leg or arm - no.

That’s awful. Your poor child. I guess my decision would depend on whether it was an accident or negligence, and whether the group was run by volunteers (even though it was paid for), and what measures they’ve put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Tough one.

Yes I would if my child was left permanently scarred as a result of their neglect.

In what way will a claim impact on your child’s ability to continue their hobby? If the camp has admitted fault and anticipate a claim from you, it doesn’t sound as though it’s going to be a contentious case creating bad feeling. Ultimately you do need to have a clear end goal: compensation for mild scarring to a child, where it’s very likely it will become much less visible with time, doesn’t usually attract a large sum of compensation; agreeing that you would settle out of court rather than spend potentially years trying to pursue a higher sum is going to be a lot less stressful all around.

Does the camp have insurance if so I would try logging a claim with them without a court case so it shouldn't effect your child. I would do it along the lines of we have a quote of X for laser treatment of the scar therefore that is the amount of compensation we are seeking.

Permanent facial disfigurement claims are at the larger end of the scale. You’d probably be doing your child a disservice if you didn’t bring a claim. They will be insured and should be covered by their PI/PL insurance

Hi OP

Sorry re your DC

Await the report, then take legal advice. The camp may offer compensation. Therefore wait before you start looking up solicitors etc

Importantly, re face injury - depending on the nature/severity, many scars can as good as disappear using the correct/best methods, Possibly consult a doctor/etc re this as well

It’s honestly a huge scar. It’s upset me all over again now the scab has fallen off with the stitches. It’s not going to fade away to nothing.

i like the idea of waiting for the report and then quietly putting in a claim to their insurers. Thank you to the poster than suggested that.

There was a hospital admission and photos were taken for the online record. Does anyone know if I have the right to access that document as the child’s mother and how I would ask for it?

Sorry that this happened to your child. Accidents do happen and that is why businesses have insurance.

A small point of procedure- as a claimant you can’t approach their insurers directly. You need to make the claim to the camp and they will refer it to their insurers, who will probably then take over all interaction with you. If you look here https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/prot_pic
you’ll get a sense of how it all works.

it’s a good idea to indicate an intention to claim (or at least state that you are still considering doing so) as early as possible. That gets the insurance wheels in motion. You can do that by a simple email.

There is a book which catalogues the damages awarded for “Pain, Suffering and Loss of Amenity” in relation to different injury types. It’s called Kemp &Kemp. It’s not available free but I have access via my work. There are numerous cases in there of children who were awarded compensation for facial scarring. The awards are around 3 to 5k for things that sound similar to what you describe, but every case is different. You can also get separate compensation for things like private medical care or any other financial impact of the accident.

I’d steer clear of most lawyers who advertise no win no fee claims for now as this might be something that you could resolve easily yourself by correspondence and your own medical report. The key is to be firm but not to go in all guns blazing.

You should also know that any settlement on behalf of a minor has to be approved by the court but a good insurance claims handler will know all about how to arrange that with minimum hassle for you.

Do, however, seek independent legal advice if you are unsure about anything at all.

You should seek advice from a solicitor who specialises in personal injury claims. Not a no win no fee one, because those take a big chunk of any damages awarded. Irwin Mitchell is a firm which does a lot of this work (I do not work for Irwin Mitchell!).

Aside from anything else, it may be possible for your child's scar to be cosmetically improved with surgery when they are older. You'd want the money to pay for that to be done.

Why will the injury affect your DC's hobby, OP?

Amazing! Thank you. I’ll go do my research and perhaps DM if that’s okay. It absolutely wasn’t an accident. It was negligence and they themselves have said it falls out of all the legislative frameworks the governing body has. Hence telling me they have informed their insurer.

Thanks again.

I’m being deliberately vague. I know that’s frustrating when you want details but it is genuinely outing across two counties.

I think that you should pursue this. It's possible that you child will want some sort of cosmetic fix later. But of course bear in mind the scar will fade as time passes. It could fund higher education. I used a no win no fee solicitor years ago and it worked out ok for me. In your case it may be best taking advice first. From what you say they may well offer to settle before it gets to court.

Check your house insurance, there may be some legal advice available through then.

As an aside, whether or not you choose to pursue compensation, don’t feel too anguished about the scar. It sounds very recent, so will be far more obvious right now than it will with healing and time, I have a couple of friends who had fairly severe facial cuts in childhood – as their faces have grown and changed and their skin matured, they’ve become barely visible. You certainly wouldn’t look at them and have your eyes drawn to it, much less think they were disfigured.

I would definitely pursue a claim. There is no rush though. You have 3 years in which to claim after your DC reaches the age of 18.

Thank you ♥️

As a PP said scars change and fade with time. As a child my husband injured his face resulting in a 2 inch scar very close to his eye. I've seen photos of when it happened and it looked terrible. He was a young boy and thought it was 'cool'! Now you can barely see it, it's a very fine line. He doesn't even notice it and I only see it sometimes if the light is right!

My question is what are you hoping for in compensation? Covering medical bills, additional treatment (loss of earnings present or future are not at play in this situation)? Would you be satisfied with a demonstrable change in practice so that the incident couldn't happen again? A full explanation, a written apology, the dismissal of whoever was responsible? If you are concerned that your child's participation in their activity could be affected by your actions then you need to think very carefully about what you hope to achieve - nothing stays totally private and someone will gossip at some point.

No problem. To be clear, I was not passing comment on whether or not anyone was negligent when I said “accidents do happen”. I simply meant that all such organisations have insurance which kicks in when a person is injured while in their care. “accident” doesn’t have a legal definition and it could be understood to include incidents that are caused by negligence as well as ones that are absolutely nobody’s fault and could not have been avoided.

The legal definition of negligence is very complicated and I would be wary of anyone who is suggesting at this early stage that it is already cut and dried.

However the chances are that the organisation will eventually be found to have some legal liability to compensate your daughter and it’s fine to proceed on that assumption.

How did it happen?