Regardless of the circumstances in which you have sustained an injured Achilles tendon, in order to make claims for Achilles tendon injury compensation in Ireland, the accident in which you suffered the injury must be the result of the carelessness of somebody who owed you a reasonable duty of care. This does not mean that person had to be physically present at the time of your Achilles tendon injury in order to claim compensation for an injured Achilles tendon – just that their negligence was the reason why your Achilles tendon injury occurred.
Often, it is not merely a single person against whom an injured Achilles tendon claim for compensation is initiated. Compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries can be made against corporate bodies, local councils and State agencies who have failed in their duty of care to protect you from foreseeable risks and, once it is established that the incident in which your Achilles tendon was injured could have been prevented had greater care been taken by one of these “third parties”, you will be eligible to make a claim for injuring an Achilles tendon and recover compensation for your injury.
Establishing Negligence in a Claim for Injuring an Achilles Tendon
In most scenarios, the procedure for making compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries in Ireland is to submit an application for assessment to the Injuries Board; who will then contact the person(s) named on your application and request their consent to proceed with an assessment of your injured Achilles tendon claim for compensation. The assessment of Achilles tendon injury compensation will only be performed when consent from the “respondent” has been received.
At this point, there is no need for you to submit evidence of negligence in support of a claim for injuring an Achilles tendon; however, in the event that the respondent declines their consent, you may then have to pursue compensation for an injured Achilles tendon through the courts. Court action is not always necessary, as many claims for Achilles tendon injury compensation in Ireland are resolved by negotiation; however, in order to get a satisfactory resolution of your claim for injuring an Achilles tendon, it is in your best interests that negligence is established before an injury claim is started.
To determine liability for your Achilles tendon injury, it has to be proven that they owed you a “duty of care” and were in violation of that duty of care when your Achilles tendon was injured. For instance, the driver of a car has a duty of care to avert causing an accident, an employer has a duty of care to create a safe environment in which to work and areas of public access have a duty of care to prevent hazards which may lead to an accident in which a Achilles tendon injury is sustained.
However, the duty of care is not necessarily “absolute”. This means, for example, that if you injure your Achilles tendon after slipping and falling in a shop on a hazard which had only just been caused by the shopper in front of you, and the shop staff had not had a “reasonable” length of time in which to identify and remove the hazard, you may not be justified in claiming compensation for an injured Achilles tendon injury.
Making Compensation Claims for Achilles Tendon Injuries
The process for initiating compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries in Ireland is to submit an application for assessment to the Injuries Board. This can be done by submitting a hard copy of the Assessment Form A or by submitting your application for the assessment of compensation for an injured Achilles tendon injury online (although this cannot be done for Achilles tendon injury compensation claims for children). Your application for assessment should include your doctor´s medical assessment of your injured Achilles tendon injury (Assessment Form B) and receipts for any financial expenses you are seeking.
Once the Injuries Board Ireland receives consent from the negligent party to continue with an assessment, you may be required to receive a further medical examination to determine the extent of your Achilles tendon injury – after which the Injuries Board will issue a “Notice of Assessment” informing you and the negligent party of the amount for which they assessed your claim for injuring an Achilles tendon for. If both you and the negligent party consent with the Injuries Board´s assessment of your injured Achilles tendon claim for compensation, an “Order to Pay” is made and your claim will be settled by the negligent party´s insurance company.
Third Party Capture and Compensation Claims for Achilles Tendon Injuries
Insurance companies are often notified of potential compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries long before their policyholder is consulted by the Injuries Board for consent to assess your claim. Reports entered in Accident Report Books and direct contact from clients can provoke insurance companies to make direct approach to possible plaintiffs with an offer of Achilles tendon injury compensation while they are still in recovery from their Achilles tendon injury and at their most vulnerable.
Inasmuch as offers of compensation for an injured Achilles tendon may be welcome at a time when you may be worried about your short term finances, the offers rarely reflect your full eligibility of compensation for the Achilles tendon injury you sustained and should be referred to a solicitor at once. If you accept an insurance company´s offer of Achilles tendon injury compensation without legal advice, and it subsequently transpires to be inadequate to cover your medical costs or support your family, you cannot return to the insurance company and make another injured Achilles tendon claim for compensation.
Litigating Achilles Tendon Injury Compensation in Ireland
The possibility of court action may sometimes dissuade plaintiffs from making compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries; however insurance companies are often even less keen to litigate an injured Achilles tendon claim for compensation in court. The costs of litigation in Ireland are substantial and, regardless of how justified the insurance company believe they are in denying their policyholder´s liability for your Achilles tendon injury, the financial risk they are taking (that a court will rule in your favour) often results in an out of court settlement of compensation for an injured Achilles tendon without admitting liability.
This is particularly true when litigation in court may be needed to resolve a dispute over how much your claim for injuring an Achilles tendon is worth. Courts tend to frown upon financial disputes of this nature, and both parties will be urged to negotiate a Achilles tendon injury compensation settlement before an appearance in court is required. In most compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries in Ireland, your solicitor will approach the negligent party´s insurers at the same time as an assessment is submitted to the Injuries Board, and will be able to advise you at an early stage whether or not court action to resolve your claim for injuring an Achilles tendon is a possibility.
Compensation Claim for Injuring an Achilles Tendon: Summary
No two compensation claims for Achilles tendon injuries in Ireland are identical – no matter how similar the circumstances of the accident and injury were – and it is always in your best interests to talk about your accident and Achilles tendon injury with a solicitor at the first available moment. A solicitor will be able to assist with potential issues such as determining liability for your Achilles tendon injury, collecting evidence of negligence on your account and ensuring that your application for the assessment of Achilles tendon injury compensation to the Injuries Board accurately reflects the impact that your injured Achilles tendon have made to your quality of life.
An Achilles tendon injury can often be a debilitating experience, and although no amount of compensation for an injured Achilles tendon can ever make up for the negligence of the person who was to blame for your injury, it costs nothing to find out whether you have an injured Achilles tendon claim for compensation which it is worth your while to pursue. Therefore, it is recommended that you discuss your eligibility to make a compensation claim for injuring an Achilles tendon with a solicitor at the first available opportunity.