Should I purse a personal injury claim for my child.

[flowerworld]

My child was injured at school, it was the schools fault. The injury itself was, I guess minor but did result in having to go to theatre and have general anaesthetic as well as a trip to a&e and again for scan and follow ups.

My question is if I should pursue a personal injury claim or leave it be. What are peoples general thoughts on pursuing this?

You get a lot of people who don’t know what they’re talking about on these types of thread OP. Your child doesn’t have to have suffered a loss to claim for an injury. You can claim for general damages for an injury if you can prove negligence.

How much you’d be entitled to depends on how severe the injury was and how long the recovery time was - and there are judicial guidelines which help value injuries.

Schools will have insurance. Only you can decide if you want to get into litigation with the school. If it’s a small injury where there has been a swift recovery and the school have put measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again, it might not be worth the hassle.

Oh and has someone has said up thread, the money will be held on behalf of your child until they’re 18.

I thought authorities are self insured meaning they pay the cost rather than enormous premiums

not enough detail to answer if OP should claim

The problem is that so many people have answered on the basis of a totally inaccurate understanding of the law, both in relation to how damages are calcluated and the fact that schools are insured.

No, they don't self-insure. Bear in mind that in the worst case scenario if a child is so badly injured as to need life long care, the damages could amount to millions. No school can take the risk of having to make that sort of payout.

I would, it’s things like this that force change. The property should have been better maintained and safe for use! The council/LA will be insured, no one is taking money from the individual school’s budget.

No to the personal injury claim (ridiculous), however, perhaps you should inform ofsted? That’s a serious safeguarding failure.

You quoted me for a scolding which was frankly offensive - like many others, I answered the question asked (which is an ethical or moral question with a pragmatic element - "should I?") not a completely different legal advice question (am I "allowed"/ entitled to? Is it possible?) projected onto it.

It's never going to be sensible to ask for actual legal (or medical) advice on an anonymous forum, blindingly obviously, and there's no indication in the question that the OP was expecting legal advice.

Make the claim, the school will have insurance. However, give almost all of it back to the school as a donation - just keep a very small amount to buy your child a SMALL present.

🙄 the OP doesn’t get the money at all.

This is completely wrong. You can of course get damages for the injury itself

Google "general damages" or "PSLA" (pain suffering and loss of amenity) or "JC Guidelines"

You do need medical evidence.

Why is it ridiculous?

You specifically said "Only if you/ your child will incur ongoing costs as a result of the accident (i.e. if it was life changing)" - which, now I look at it again, is quite bewildering. Why would an accident be life changing solely because, say, the victim has to buy a new bike?

Nowhere did you suggest that this was purely ethical or moral advice, and indeed it would be very strange if it was. Why would it be morally OK for the school's negligence to result in an injured child incurring distress and pain and needing surgery and ongoing treatment, but not OK if it resulted in the child incurring expense?

Seems a weird idea. Why should the school be rewarded for causing a child an injury serious enough to need surgery?

In any event, OP won't have the chance as the money would, rightly, go into trust for her child.

I'm intrigued to know where the people who think that the OP would be morally wrong to seek compensation think the line is? Should we ever claim compensation? If not, why don't we do away with insurance? Hit by another driver and left disabled, just suck it up. Your neighbour's tree crashes through your roof one night, well, they're nice people, don't make a fuss. Why do we expect individuals and organisations to be insured if injured parties aren't supposed to claim?
Or is it ok to claim for serious things, and if so, who gets to decide if it's serious enough? We do actually have a system for that of course and if the insurers, or should it get that far, court, don't think that the OP's claim meets the necessary threshold she will lose. And if she wins, she, or rather her child, will be awarded an amount of money commensurate with what has happened. No insurer or judge is going to award hundreds of thousands of pounds for say, a broken finger. Not unless it's ruined a child prodigy's violin career of course. If the OP were to falsely claim something like that then it would indeed be morally reprehensible but as long as she is honest(and there's no indication that she won't be) why shouldn't she make a claim. We don't say you can only put in an insurance claim if your car is written off and you shouldn't claim at all for less serious damage do we, we just expect the payment to reflect the level of damage. Why should claims about damaged people be different?