Regardless of how you have sustained a concussion injury, in order to make claims for concussion injury compensation in Ireland, the accident in which your injury occurred must be attributable to the recklessness of somebody who owed you a reasonable duty of care. This does not mean that individual had to be physically present at the time of your concussion injury in order to claim compensation for a concussion injury – just that their negligence was the reason why your concussion injury occurred.
Often, it may not even be one person against whom a concussion injury claim for compensation is made. Compensation claims for concussion 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 concussion was sustained could have been prevented had greater care been taken by one of these “third parties”, you will be eligible to make a claim for sustaining a concussion and recover compensation for your injury.
Establishing Negligence in a Claim for Sustaining a Concussion
In most scenarios, the procedure for making compensation claims for concussion 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 concussion injury claim for compensation. The analysis of concussion injury compensation is only carried out 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 sustaining a concussion; however, in the event that the respondent declines their consent, you may then have to pursue compensation for a concussion injury through the courts. Court action is not always necessary, as many claims for concussion injury compensation in Ireland are resolved by negotiation; however, in order to get a satisfactory resolution of your claim for sustaining a concussion, it is in your best interests that negligence is established before an injury claim is started.
In order for a person – or persons – to be considered liable for your concussion injury, it has to be proven that they owed you a “duty of care” and failed to perform that duty of care when your concussion had occurred. For example, the driver of a car has a duty of care to avert causing an accident, an employer has a duty of care to fulfil and provide a safe environment in which to work and public access places have a duty of care to prevent accidents which may lead to an accident in which a concussion injury is sustained.
However, a duty of care is not necessarily “absolute”. This means, for instance, that if you sustain your concussion after slipping and falling in a shop on water that had just been spilled by the shopper in front of you, and the shop employees 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 a concussion injury.
Supporting a Concussion Injury Claim for Compensation
If you were capable of collecting evidence of negligence following the incident in which you sustained your concussion, it can be used to support a concussion injury claim for compensation – as long as you did not place yourself at risk of further injury in order to pursue it. What evidence of negligence you should gather can contrast significantly depending on the nature of the incident in which you sustained a concussion injury, and may include photographs taken with a mobile phone at the scene of an accident, the contact details of people who saw your accident occurring or physical evidence – such as when faulty goods bought from a shop have been responsible for your concussion.
If you could not gather evidence of negligence due to being incapacitated by your concussion injury, or because you wisely chose to pursue medical attention for your concussion injury, you may still be able to obtain evidence in support of compensation claims for concussion injuries from:-
- The Health and Safety Authority if your concussion injury was sustained at work,
- CCTV video if your sustained your concussion in a trip in the street or a slip in a shop, or
- The Gardai if your concussion was sustained in a road traffic accident.
In the majority of situations in which you may sustain a concussion injury it should be feasible to gather some evidence of negligence in support of a claim for sustaining a concussion. If you are unable to collect evidence yourself because of your concussion injury, ask a family member or friend (or a solicitor) to do it for you as soon as possible – while the evidence you require to verify your claim for concussion injury compensation is still available and before the memories of witnesses begin to fade.
Compensation Claim for Sustaining a Concussion: Summary
No two compensation claims for concussion injuries in Ireland are identical – regardless of how similar the circumstances of the accident had been – and it is always in your best interests to talk about your accident and concussion injury with a solicitor at the earliest possible moment. A solicitor will be able to help with potential issues such as establishing liability for your concussion injury, gathering evidence of negligence on your behalf and ensuring that your application for the assessment of concussion injury compensation to the Injuries Board accurately reflects the consequences that your injured concussion have made to your quality of life.
A concussion injury can often be a debilitating experience, and although no amount of compensation for a concussion injury 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 a concussion injury claim for compensation which it is worth your while to pursue. Therefore, you are recommended to discuss your entitlement to make a compensation claim for sustaining a concussion with a solicitor at the first practical occasion.