Personal Injury and Accident Claims

All claims for Personal injury after accidents in Ireland, but not Medical Negligence claims, are submitted to the Personal Injuries assessment Board ( Personal Injuries Assessment Board piab) who assess your circumstances and you must submit the Injuries assessment board piab form which is an application for assessment and including your medical analysis, either your GP’s or hospital’s medical assessment form before you go to court.

The Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) was set up some years ago in Ireland to both regulate personal injury claims by trying to both standardise payouts for Personal injuries and also to put a handle on the cost of making personal bodily injury claims by not making it necessary to have personal injury solicitors Dublin on board at this stage. That is all well and good but there are two major areas of danger that you should be aware off when dealing with the Personal Injuries Assessment Board in Ireland;

A minor error in the filing of the application with the Personal Injuries assessment Board in Ireland after accidents could invalidate your personal injury claim. For example the incorrect name of the respondent and/or their insurance company who will represent the party who you hold responsible for your personal injury in the accident, or even its address could have your personal injury claims deemed invalidated by the Injuries Board many months after it was filed and therefore causing major problems not by days but by months to what you may be entitled to.

As the Statute of Limitations in Ireland has a time limit of two years from the date of the accident, except for minors who have not yet achieved their eighteenth birthday, this delay could indeed be very costly for you indeed. Remember it does not need to be a serious injury claims to have us Personal Injury Solicitors Dublin assist you with your personal injuries application with the injuries board.

As indicated above, many months will pass before the Personal Injuries Assessment Board issues their Assessment recommendation to you for your personal injury claim. to accept if you are in agreement or reject it if you are not in agreement and if you reject the Personal injuries assessment Board assessment as you are not in agreement with their assessment value then vital evidence may no longer be available to you.

On top of this you may include vital witnesses for the personal injury claim in Ireland who may no longer recall the events after some months passed or who may have moved on to different addresses. This could put your claim in jeopardy and it is therefore better that you bring a personal injury solicitor and co solicitors on board from the very beginning when dealing with the Personal Injuries assessment Board so that they can safeguard relevant evidence and take statements from key witnesses.

Once the Personal Injuries Assessment Board in Ireland have given their personal injuries assessment of your personal injury claim neither yourself or your adversary the Insurance Company are obliged to accept the Injuries Board [PIAB] Assessment. Both parties can either accept or reject it as you may consider the recommendation as too low. The insurance company may think it is too high and the result is that you will need a personal injury solicitor to negotiate a settlement of your injuries claim with the Insurance Company. If that fails then your injury claim in Ireland will have to go to the courts for settlement.

For the Personal Injury assessment Board below are typical examples of Personal Injuries sustained after accidents. Thankfully not all injuries are serious and most people recover within a short period of time.

A lot of Personal injuries cases do not succeed because the personal injury was not caused by the negligence of a third party. However if the accident was someone else’s fault then you may have a personal injury claim to submit to the Personal Injury Assessment Board.In the main personal injury claims come from personal injuries sustained in road traffic accidents and public liability claims, such as slips, trips and falls.

A personal injury is either a physical injury or a psychological injury. If you break your arm after a slip on a wet floor in a shop then you would have suffered a physical personal injury. On the other hand, if you were in a road traffic accident and as a result you had experienced depression, stress and anxiety, then this state of mind may be described as a psychological personal injury.

All possible personal injuries on the body must be seen by an independent doctor in the days following the accident before the doctor completes a report to the injuries assessment board piab.

The Personal Injuries assessment Board average payout can vary depending on the severity of the personal injuries but the injuries assessment board piab publish in the body of their website what is known to the public as the Book of Quantum.

The Book of Quantum details and lays out the knowledge for the public of how much personal injuries might be worth. The website of the Personal injuries assessment board has a lot of useful information and knowledge and is well worth consulting if you are considering taking a personal injury claim.

It is almost impossible to predict at the start just how long a Personal injury claim will take to come to a conclusion. The length of time taken to complete a Personal injury claim can vary extensively depending on a number of variables;

• The type of accident and the Personal injuries which have been sustained, which can again be wide ranging such as broken limbs, whiplash from road traffic accidents, head injuries and in extreme cases fatalities. Sometimes it pays to await for an improvement in your personal injury before settling your Personal injury claim.
• The Personal Injury assessment Board has set deadlines for making an assessment on your Personal injury but those deadlines often slip in time due to a number of factors some of which are under their control, some of which are not.

There are many different types of personal injury but most of them can be categorised in the following headings;

1. Road traffic Accidents mean accidents on the road such as car accidents involving cars, lorries, vans, buses, motor bikes, bicycles and pedestrians. As our roads have to cater for ever increasing traffic there are more and more road traffic accidents and we all may well be involved in a road traffic accident in our lives.
2. Slips, Falls and Trips We have all encountered wet floors or worn carpets or uneven surfaces or pot holes that have sent us flying to the ground. All types of personal injuries can result as we certainly are not prepared to be ceremoniously dumped on the ground.
3. Work injuries and accidents. Although Health and Safety legislation has made the work place a safer place accidents and injuries still happen. Faulty tools and machines and equipment have not gone away. Employees are still being asked to perform tasks where they have had no training or inadequate training and personal injuries still happen unfortunately.
4. Holiday accidents and injuries. In a new environment and when relaxed things can go wrong through no fault of your own and a personal injury can totally spoil a well earned holiday
5. Medical Negligence. Mistakes can happen even when the consequences might be dramatic. Misdiagnosis, wrong prescriptions, wrong doses, mistakes in surgery the list can go on forever

So whatever your category of personal injury a quick call to us or send us the completed form on the website and we will arrange a consultation at your convenience.

Often after suffering a personal injury in an accident, even if there is contributory negligence involved or after being harmed in a possible Medical Negligence case the first thing that comes to mind is although you want redress how will you be able to pay legal fees and legal costs for claims advice to your injury solicitors? In some cases it can stop the process in its tracks. Ask us to explain the various options available to you including an explanation of No Win No Fee agreements. Solicitors in Ireland are not allowed to advertise No win No Fee agreements but they are allowed to offer the product in consultation. No Win No Fee agreement, sometimes called No Win No Foal agreements or Contingency agreements makes you liable for legal fees only if your case is won. If you lose then you pay nothing.