General damages compensation is the main head of loss in personal injury claims. They are awarded in recognition of the fact that you successfully proved a third party caused your injuries by breaching their duty of care to you.
What Duty Of Care Am I Owed?
You are owed a duty of care in various situations you may experience in your day-to-day life. A duty of care legally requires third parties to adhere to a standard of reasonable care and avoid careless acts to prevent you (and others) from being foreseeably harmed. If they fail to fully meet their duty of care and you are injured, a personal injury claim for compensation can be made.
Examples of situations where you are owed a duty of care include:
- At work. If your employer fails to take reasonable steps to ensure your safety and you sustain injuries in an accident at work, you might have good grounds to launch a workplace injury claim.
- In public places. While you are out and about in public spaces, the occupier owes you a duty of care to ensure your reasonable safety. If they fail to do so and you suffer an injury, you could be eligible to make a public liability claim.
- On the roads. All road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, motorbike riders, and vehicle drivers, owe each other a duty of care to use the roads safely and responsibly to avoid causing injury and damage. If another road user breaches this and you sustain injuries, you could make a road traffic accident claim.
General Damages
General damages compensation seeks to reimburse claimants for a variety of issues, such as:
- The actual pain and suffering caused to them by the injuries.
- The expected length of recovery.
- The complexity of the injuries, whether any of them are permanent and the length of treatments involved.
- Any psychological injury caused by the accident. This includes general stress, anxiety, depression or more severe issues such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). You could suffer mental health damage alone or in conjunction with other injuries.
- Also, the negative overall impact on the quality of the person’s life and any lifestyle changes they needed to make (loss of amenity).
How Much Compensation?
To calculate compensation for general damages, those responsible for assigning value to claims may consult documents like the Judicial Colege Guidelines (JCG). This publication (now in its 17th edition) lists award bracket guideline amounts for a variety of injuries based on severity. The amounts listed in the JCG are purely guidelines.
Every personal injury claim will differ according to individual circumstances. Therefore, a solicitor can arrange an independent medical assessment at a time and location to suit you. This can fully establish how you were harmed. Also, the medical report this generates can be used to better assess the correct compensation amount owed to you.
Other evidence can also be used to help calculate general damages compensation. It is therefore essential to take photos of the injuries, collect copies of medical records and GP notes, X-rays and scans, as well as proof of any prescription medications that were needed.
Importantly, you would only be awarded general damages compensation if you had evidence that successfully proved how a duty of care to you had been breached by a third party. And that this directly caused or contributed to your physical and/or psychological injuries.
To learn more about legal terms and definitions, please visit our legal glossary.
