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How Much Compensation Can I Claim For A Chest Injury?

By Stephen Hudson. Last Updated 13th June 2024. Suffering a chest injury can have a severe impact on your life, and can lead to serious consequences for both your physical and mental well-being. Chest injuries are often serious and can affect major organs, such as your lungs and your heart.

In this guide, we will detail how to make a chest injury compensation claim. We will discuss the criteria that your case must meet in order to form a valid personal injury claim, and we will also touch on the different types of chest injuries that you could sustain.

Following this, we will discuss chest injury compensation, and detail how solicitors and other legal professionals calculate the different heads of claim. We will also touch on No Win No Fee solicitors, and the benefits of working with a legal professional on your case.

To learn more, read on, or contact our team of friendly advisors by:

A man with a possible chest injury with a pained facial expression and his hand over his heart. A younger man is running up to him.

Chest injury compensation claims guide

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How Much Compensation Could Be Awarded For Chest Injury Claims?

There are two potential heads of claim that you could receive should your chest injury compensation claim succeed. The first, general damages, is awarded to all successful claimants. This compensates you for your injuries and the pain and suffering they have caused you.

Often, solicitors and other legal professionals will use the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) to help them value this head of claim. The JCG is a document that lists guideline compensation brackets for various injuries. Below you can find some of the amounts listed in the 17th edition of the JCG. Additionally, we’ve provided a figure in the top row to show you how compensation could be awarded for multiple injuries and related expenses. This figure was not taken from the JCG.

Please only use this table as a guide.

InjuryCompensation
Multiple Serious Injuries and Special DamagesUp to £500,000+
Loss of one lung/heart damage£122,850 to £183,190
Chest injury causing loss of function/loss of life expectancy£80,240 to £122,850
Chest injury causing some disability £38,210 to £66,920
Simple penetrating injury of the chest£15,370 to £21,920
Toxic fume/smoke inhalation £6,500 to £15,370
Collapsed lung £2,680 to £6,500
Rib fracture Up to £4,820

The second head of claim, special damages, is awarded to those who have suffered financial losses because of their injuries. In order to claim under this heading, you need to be able to provide proof of your losses with bank statements, receipts, or bills.

Under special damages, you could potentially claim back the cost of:

  •   Lost earnings.
  •   Medicines and prescriptions.
  •   Domestic help.
  •   Childcare.
  •   Essential travel.

To find out more about claiming compensation for a chest injury, contact our team of advisors today.

What Is A Chest Injury?

Chest injury is a very wide term that is used to describe a range of different injury types and illnesses. All of these can affect the chest area of the body, commonly the chest is defined as the area between the neck and the diaphragm. It can include everything from broken bones to musculoskeletal injuries to other problems. Specific types of injury can include;

    • Fractured and broken bones (including ribs, the clavicle, sternum, or even the breastbone).
      Damage to the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the chest and sternum.
    • Any other injuries or illnesses which can affect the internal organs.

Chest injuries can have a serious and long-term effect on those who suffer from them. To get the compensation you deserve, talk to Legal Expert today.

Am I Eligible To Claim For A Chest Injury?

There are various day-to-day situations that could result in a chest injury. However, if you are seeking compensation, you must be able to prove that a liable party’s actions or inactions caused your injury.

Situations where you might be eligible to make a chest injury claim include:

  • Public liability accidents. Visitors to public spaces are owed a duty of care by the individual or organisation responsible for the premises (otherwise known as the occupier) under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. This means that the occupier must ensure your reasonable safety while you use that space for its intended purpose. If the occupier fails to uphold this duty and you sustain an injury as a result of this failure, you could be eligible to claim chest injury compensation. For example, if the occupier is aware that a sharp railing is sticking up but fails to repair it or make it safe and you slip and impale yourself on this railing, you could be eligible to make a personal injury claim.
  • Road traffic accidents. Anyone using the roads, including pedestrians, cyclists, motorbike riders and vehicle drivers, owes a duty of care to everyone else on the roads. This means that they must navigate in a way that avoids causing injuries and damage to themselves and others. As part of this duty, anyone using the roads should adhere to relevant sections of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Highway Code. For example, if a driver speeds through a red light while you are crossing the road and runs you over, you could claim compensation for your injuries.
  • Accidents at work. While you are in the workplace, your employer must take reasonably practicable steps to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their staff. This is the duty of care as set out in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HASAWA). If you would like to claim chest injury compensation, you need to prove that your employer failed to comply with relevant health and safety regulations. For example, your employer is required to ensure that any work equipment is safe to use. If they fail to carry out the required maintenance, you could sustain injuries.

Direct any questions about your eligibility to seek personal injury compensation to a member of our advisory team.

Time Limit For Starting A Chest Injury Claim

It is vital that you start your chest injury claim within the time limit set by the Limitation Act 1980. For personal injury claims, this is generally three years from the date of the accident.

However, in certain circumstances, there is a suspension applied to this three year time limit. These include:

  • When an injured person is under the age of 18. The time limit is paused until their 18th birthday, giving them three years from that date to begin a claim for chest injury compensation. However, during this pause, a litigation friend could be appointed by the court to seek compensation on their behalf.
  • When an injured party does not have the mental capacity to make their own chest injury claim. In these cases, the time limit is suspended for as long as they do not have this capacity, perhaps, indefinitely. At any point during this time, a litigation friend can manage the claims process for them. Should the injured person recover this capacity and a claim was not made on their behalf, they will have three years from the date it was deemed they made this recovery to start one.

Direct any questions you have about the time limits that apply when claiming for your chest injury to a member of our advisory team.

No Win No Fee Chest Injury Claims

Those with valid grounds to claim chest injury compensation can consider getting support from a solicitor. If you talk to our advisors about your claim, they may connect you with one of our No Win No Fee solicitors if you meet the eligibility criteria.

Our solicitors can support chest injury claims under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). With such an agreement in place, you won’t need to pay upfront or ongoing fees for your solicitor’s services. Also, you won’t need to pay your solicitor for their work if your injury claim proves unsuccessful.

If your claim does succeed, the solicitor will take what’s called a success fee. This is typically a legally capped percentage subtracted from the compensation awarded to you.

To learn more about how a No Win No Fee solicitor could help you with your chest injury claim, you can contact our advisors for free. You can reach our team through the following methods:

A solicitor shakes a claimant's hand after agreeing to represent a chest injury claim.

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If you have suffered a chest injury, get free legal advice and find out how much you can claim.