By Stephen Hudson, Last Updated 26th November 2024. In this guide, we will discuss when you may be eligible to make a personal injury claim to receive compensation for emotional distress. The term personal injury covers various types of claims, such as road traffic accident claims, accident at work claims and public liability claims.
As we move through the guide, we will explain the eligibility requirements that your claim must meet for you to have potentially valid grounds to seek compensation for a personal injury. Following this, we will look at different types of psychological injuries that an accident could cause, such as emotional distress, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is important to note that a personal injury claim can be made for psychological damage either alongside or independent of physical injuries.
We will also provide information regarding the evidence you could obtain to support your claim and explain how personal injury compensation could be calculated.
To conclude, we will explain the potential benefits of working with a No Win No Fee solicitor to pursue personal injury compensation.
If you would like to ask any questions regarding your potential personal injury compensation claim, you can speak to a member of our team at any time, as they are available 24/7 to provide you with free advice and guidance. Also, they have access to our specialist No Win No Fee personal injury solicitors, but this does not mean that they will place you under any obligations to further your claim with us.
To get in touch, you can:
- Call 0800 073 8804 to speak to a team member,
- Claim online by filling out our form, or
- Type to an advisor via the live chat window on this page.
Select A Section
- Can I Receive Compensation For Emotional Distress?
- What Constitutes A Psychological Injury?
- How Do You Prove A Psychiatric Injury Such As Emotional Distress?
- How Do You Calculate Damages For Emotional Distress?
- Contact A No Win No Fee Solicitor
- Read More About Claiming Compensation For Emotional Distress
Can I Receive Compensation For Emotional Distress?
In certain scenarios, you are owed a duty of care by another party. A breach could result in an accident that causes physical and/or mental injuries. This could lead you to claim emotional distress compensation (if you meet the eligibility). Examples of such scenarios include the following:
- At work, you are owed a duty of care by your employer under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This duty obliges employers to take reasonable steps to protect their staff from potential injuries while they are within the workplace and carrying out their duties.
- When you are in a public space, such as a supermarket or a park, whoever controls that space owes you a duty of care under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957. This legislation requires controllers of a public area to take steps to ensure reasonable safety to visitors of that area.
- If you use a road, then you and other road users owe a duty of care to each other. This duty requires each road user to use the roads responsibly and prevent causing harm to each other. Each road user should also follow the rules laid out in the Road Traffic Act 1988 plus those established in the Highway Code.
If you have been involved in an accident and as a result suffered emotional distress, a claim in response may be possible if the following applies:
- Another party owed you a duty of care, which they breached.
- Due to this breach, you suffered psychological harm and potentially physical injuries as well.
To learn more about your eligibility to claim compensation for emotional distress, please contact our advisors for free today.
What Constitutes A Psychological Injury?
There are various types of mental health conditions that can affect your life. Mental health problems can cause you to feel that the ways you’re thinking, reacting, and feeling are difficult, or near impossible, to cope with.
Examples of some of the psychological injuries you could experience after an accident include:
- Anxiety
- Emotional distress
- PTSD
- Depression
In some cases, mental harm may be the result of experiencing a severe and life-altering physical injury, such as an amputation or facial disfigurement. However, psychological damage can also be caused where no physical injury is present. If you have experienced psychological damage due to third-party negligence, please speak to a member of our team to discover whether you may be eligible to receive compensation for emotional distress.
How Do You Prove A Psychiatric Injury Such As Emotional Distress?
To support a personal injury claim for emotional distress, it is important that you can prove the occurrence of negligence. To do this, you should seek medical attention for your psychological damage and/or physical injuries and obtain a copy of the medical records produced.
Other evidence you could gather includes:
- Photographic evidence
- CCTV footage, or footage from a dashcam if the accident occurred on the road
- The contact details of witnesses who could be contacted for a statement at a later stage
- A diary of your symptoms and treatment
- A copy of the incident report from the accident at work book, if the accident happened at work
If you would like to ask one of our advisors, ‘How do you prove a psychiatric injury?’, get in touch. They can provide further information on how you can strengthen a claim for personal injury compensation for emotional distress.
How Do You Calculate Damages For Emotional Distress?
If your personal injury claim is successful, your compensation for emotional distress could potentially be made up of two heads of loss. These heads of loss are known as general and special damages.
General damages compensates you for the psychological effects of your emotional distress, and for the physical effects of any other injuries you may have suffered. Here are some factors that are looked at under general damages:
- Loss of amenity.
- The prognosis of your emotional distress.
- What treatment is required.
Legal professionals can calculate a potential general damages figure by examining your medical evidence alongside the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). The JCG publication lists the compensation guidelines for England and Wales for various psychological and physical injuries.
Compensation Guidelines
We have included some of the JCG compensation guidelines below. But, please bear in mind that the top figure is not from the JCG, and the emotional distress compensation amount you could potentially receive may differ from these figures, as all claims are unique:
- For suffering multiple serious psychological and/or injuries and financial losses, the compensation bracket is up to £250,000+.
- For general psychological damage considered severe, the compensation bracket is £66,920 to £141,240.
- For moderately severe psychological damage, the compensation amount is £23,270 to £66,920.
- In cases where there is moderate psychological damage, the compensation amount is £7,150 to £23,270.
- For less severe cases of moderate psychological damage, the compensation bracket is set at £1,880 to £7,150.
- The compensation bracket for severe PTSD is £73,050 to £122,850.
- For moderately severe PTSD, the compensation amount is £28,250 to £73,050.
- For moderate PTSD, there is a compensation bracket set at £9,980 to £28,250.
- When less severe PTSD is being claimed for, the bracket is £4,820 to £9,980.
Special Damages
Special damages compensates you for the financial effects of your emotional distress. This includes:
- Loss of earnings for needing time off work to recover from your psychological injury.
- Therapy costs.
- Travel expenses for going to and from medical appointments.
General damages are awarded to everyone who has a successful personal injury claim, whereas special damages are only awarded to some people. This is why you’ll need to provide supporting evidence when claiming for financial losses. So be sure to hold onto payslips, receipts, travel tickets, invoices, bank statements, and other documents.
Please contact us today to learn more about how emotional distress compensation is calculated.
Contact A No Win No Fee Solicitor
If you allow one of our advisors to assess your claim today, they may find that you have an eligible personal injury case and could potentially connect you with one of our No Win No Fee solicitors specialising in emotional distress claims.
A popular type of No Win No Fee agreement that our solicitors can offer is called a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). This can have the following potential advantages for your claim:
- Firstly, there will not be any upfront or ongoing payments for you to make for the services provided by your personal injury solicitor.
- Secondly, if your emotional distress claim is unsuccessful, there will be no payments to be made at any time for the services your solicitor provides.
- Lastly, in the case that your emotional distress claim is successful, your No Win No Fee solicitor can receive a small success fee from the compensation. This is a percentage capped by the law.
Talk To Our Team
Please don’t hesitate to speak to a member of our team today to learn more about claiming personal injury compensation for emotional distress.
You can:
- Call 0800 073 8804 to speak to a team member,
- Contact us by filling out our callback form, or
- Type to an advisor via the live chat window on this page.
Read More About Claiming Compensation For Emotional Distress
Firstly, to learn more about personal injury claims for psychological damage, explore more of the guides on our website:
- How Much Compensation Can I Claim For Anxiety After A Car Accident?
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Solicitors – How To Start A No Win No Fee PTSD Claim?
- Personal Injury Compensation Time Limits Explained
Also, visit the following external links for further information:
- Mind – Information and Support
- NHS – Get urgent help for mental health
- GOV.UK – Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
Thank you for reading this article on when you may be eligible to claim personal injury compensation for emotional distress. If you have any additional questions, contact an advisor via the details provided above.
