represents teacher who secures a damages award in excess of £3/4m.
The Claimant, at the time of the accident, a 37 year old teacher sustained a concussive head injury from a falling object at work.
As a consequence she developed vestibular symptoms which included vertigo, occipital headache, photophobia, phonophobia, osmophobia, which satisfied the criteria for Migraine Variant Balance Disorder, Post Traumatic Migraine with vestibular symptoms and Benign Paraxysmal Positional Vertigo. The neuropsychologists in the case agreed that the Claimant’s symptoms would meet the criteria of Functional Neurological Disorder with anxiety and depression.
It was the Claimant’s case that she suffered a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in a medically complex case involving experts in neurology, neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology and audio vestibular medicine. The injury sustained prevented her return to work at the time of settlement, although there was some scope for further improvement. Whilst she had not returned to work at the point of settlement, employment experts (less regularly instructed these days) agreed that, after some further treatment, she had some residual earning capacity which the Claimant conceded at £16k pa.
The Defendant local authority funded rehabilitation through regular interim payments, although at the same time instructed surveillance operatives to film the Claimant over the course of the case. Whilst that evidence was underwhelming and in many ways favoured the Claimant’s case, once deployed it had a negative impact upon the Claimant’s mental health and response to rehabilitation efforts due to the perceived intrusion in her private life subsequent fear of being followed.
The Claimant underwent rigorous scrutiny from medical experts on both sides. The Defendant sought to undermine the Claimant’s credibility and their instructed neuropsychologist considered that the claimant met the criteria for a Probable Malingering Neurocognitive disorder, having exaggerated her symptoms and fabricated psychological dysfunction, notwithstanding the fact that that the Defendant’s own instructed Audio-Vestibular expert finding that there was an organic explanation for her symptoms. It is worth noting that the neuropsychologist was alone in his conclusions and whilst alluding dishonesty though disclosure of the reports and surveillance evidence were not so bold as to put forward a positive case that the Claimant was malingering.
The case concluded approximately 6 weeks before trial for a sum exceeding £ ¾ M including claims for future income based upon Ogden 8 principles and involving lost career progression as analysed by the employment experts.