Rotator cuff injuries frequently result in extreme shoulder pain, weakness, and a limited range of motion, often making it difficult to perform daily activities. If the shoulder trauma you experienced was caused by the negligent acts or inactions of a third party, such as an employer failing to provide you with appropriate manual handling training, you may be able to start the rotator cuff injury claims process. The amount of compensation for a rotator cuff injury you may receive can range between £15,580 and £23,430 in a case where symptoms persist following surgery.
That being said, rotator cuff injury compensation is always calculated on a case-by-case basis, considering the severity of the trauma, the prognosis period, the overall impact on your quality of life, and how the harm affects your daily activities. Beyond physical symptoms like a reduced ability to lift and chronic dysfunction, rotator cuff injuries may give rise to anxiety, depression and severe sleep disturbances. Our solicitors consider these nuances, ensuring that each case is accurately valued to reflect the full impact of the trauma.
Following a free case check, you can be represented by one of our experienced personal injury solicitors. At Legal Expert, you’re choosing a team that will put your recovery first. This is because we not only approach every case with a determination to secure the outcome you truly deserve, but also place great importance on prioritising client welfare.In doing so, our talented No Win No Fee solicitors handle every aspect of the legal process while you focus on your recovery, and can support your long-term needs by connecting you with trusted orthopaedic specialists.
To learn more about claiming for a rotator cuff injury, please contact us today.
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How Much Compensation For A Rotator Cuff Injury Can I Claim?
For a rotator cuff injury where your symptoms persist even after surgery, you may be awarded between £15,580 and £23,430 in compensation, according to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). However, it’s important to keep in mind that your final settlement will depend on the severity of damage to your muscles and tendons, how the injury affects your range of motion, and whether the trauma has affected your finances.
In successful rotator cuff injury claims, you’ll be awarded general damages for the physical and mental pain and suffering you endured. These damages are often assessed by our solicitors using medical evidence alongside the JCG publication, which contains compensation guidelines for a wide range of injuries.
All entries in the list below, apart from the first figure, have been taken from the JCG. Please be aware that they are merely guidelines and do not guarantee how much compensation you could receive.
Multiple severe injuries with financial losses, such as lost earnings, medical expenses and home modifications – up to £500,000+.
Severe shoulder injuries, with damage to the brachial plexus and significant disability – £23,430 to £58,610.
Serious shoulder injuries, such as rotator cuff injuries with persisting symptoms after surgery – £15,580 to £23,430.
Moderate shoulder injuries, such as a frozen shoulder with a limitation of movement, with symptoms persisting for up to 2 years – £9,630 to £15,580.
Minor shoulder injuries (i), including soft tissue injuries that recover in under 2 years – £5,310 to £9,630.
Minor shoulder injuries (ii), such as soft tissue injuries with considerable pain but a complete recovery within a year – £2,990 to £5,310.
Minor shoulder injuries (iii), including soft tissue injuries, but almost a complete recovery within 3 months – Up to£2,990.
To receive a free compensation estimate, please contact one of our friendly advisors today.
What Other Damages Can I Claim Compensation For After Injuring My Rotator Cuff?
After injuring your rotator cuff, you can also claim compensation for the financial losses you suffered as a result of your shoulder trauma. This is covered by special damages, examples of which are outlined below.
Lost Earnings
If your rotator cuff tear affects your range of motion or results in chronic pain, you may be unable to work or perform your duties. In this scenario, you could be compensated for:
Any impact on workplace benefits, including pension contributions and private healthcare schemes
Medical Expenses
The cost of treating a rotator cuff injury can be substantial, depending on the severity of the trauma and whether you sought private medical treatment. Special damages can account for expenses related to:
Private surgeries, for example, a procedure to repair a torn shoulder tendon
Rehabilitative support, including hydrotherapy and physical therapy
Prescriptions for painkillers, analgesics, and steroid injections
Care Costs
Trauma affecting the rotator cuff frequently leaves people unable to perform their usual daily tasks. If you sought help from others, reimbursable costs can include:
Professional support with cleaning and cooking
Assistance from loved ones and close family members. For instance, you may be able to claim for the lost earnings of a relative who took time off work to care for you
Home And Car Modifications
If your rotator cuff injury is permanent in nature, you may have to adapt your home and car to accommodate long-term needs. For instance, you might be compensated for the cost of:
Installing grab bars and lever-style door handles
Purchasing long-handled tools
Adapting your car to support wireless keypad control and electronic handbrakes
Travel Expenses
Travelling back and forth to medical appointments can be costly, especially if you need long-term care to help your rotator cuff heal. If this is the case for you, you can claim for the expense of paying for:
Fuel
Public transport, such as buses and trains
Taxi fares
Parking fees at hospitals and clinics
Please also note that special damages must be supported with evidence, such as payslips, invoices for private orthopaedic consultations, and receipts for prescriptions.
To learn more about claiming special damages compensation for a rotator cuff injury, please get in touch today.
Can I Make A Rotator Cuff Injury Compensation Claim?
Yes, you can make a rotator cuff injury compensation claim if you can demonstrate that your injuries resulted directly from a third party’s negligent actions. Therefore, you will need to satisfy the following eligibility requirements:
You Were Owed a Duty of Care
In many everyday situations, you are owed an automatic duty of care, including at workplaces, in public, and on the roads. This simply means that specific parties, such as an employer, have a legal obligation to take reasonable steps to protect your health and safety. In the context of rotator cuff injuries, this duty can be met by an employer providing properly maintained ladders or by a supermarket operator ensuring that shelving is not overloaded.
That Duty of Care Was Breached
You must be able to demonstrate that the duty of care was breached. In rotator cuff injury cases, breaches commonly include employers failing to provide lifting aids to workers, road users exceeding the speed limit, and gym management neglecting to service equipment regularly.
You Suffered a Rotator Cuff Injury Due To the Breach
To be eligible to claim compensation, the rotator cuff injury must be a result of the breach. Shoulder injuries involving the rotator cuff vary in severity, ranging from minor trauma to full-thickness tears that completely detach the tendon from the bone.
To learn more about your eligibility to claim compensation for a rotator cuff injury, feel free to contact us today.
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Rotator cuff injuries are typically caused by acute trauma from accidents at work, on roads, in public and in healthcare settings. Please see the following causes of rotator cuff injuries and how compensation claims could arise as a result:
Rotator Cuff Injury At Work
At work, employers owe a duty of care to their employees; as part of this, they must take reasonable steps to ensure staff safety.
Therefore, if you suffered rotator cuff injuries due to your employer’s negligence, you could make an accident at work claim. For example:
Warehouse management fails to provide manual handling training sessions to staff members. Despite this, they order workers to carry excessively heavy boxes, causing an employee to fall and suffer a partial-thickness rotator cuff tear.
A store improperly stacks inventory on a high shelf, causing several heavy objects to fall and strike a member of staff. This results in a damaged rotator cuff and shoulder blade fracture.
Rotator Cuff Injury After A Road Traffic Accident
As part of their duty of care, road users must use the roads in a way that avoids harm to themselves and others. They also need to comply with the rules of the Highway Code and the Road Traffic Act 1988.
You could make a road traffic accident claim if you suffered rotator cuff injuries in scenarios like the following:
While distracted by their mobile phone, a motorist fails to notice a red light ahead and collides with another vehicle. This leads to a car passenger suffering deep lacerations and a serious rotator cuff injury from the force of the impact.
A cyclist fails to see a pedestrian using a pelican crossing, resulting in a direct collision. The pedestrian sustains a full-thickness tear of their left rotator cuff, alongside a broken leg and back injuries.
Public Place Rotator Cuff Injuries
Occupiers of public places must take practical action to ensure that visitors to their premises are reasonably safe. If their failure to do so causes a rotator cuff injury, you may be able to make a public liability claim. For example:
Supermarket staff ignore pooling water from a leaking fridge and fail to place a wet floor sign to warn customers. Due to this, a shopper slips and falls, resulting in serious neck, shoulder and rotator cuff tear injuries.
Shopping centre management fails to repair broken and uneven flooring, despite multiple complaints. A shopper trips and falls on the dangerous flooring, landing with a significant impact on their right shoulder. This leaves them with an acute rotator cuff tear and long-lasting psychological injuries in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Medical Negligence Caused Rotator Cuff Injuries
All healthcare professionals owe a duty of care to patients when providing treatment. As part of this duty, healthcare professionals must meet the minimum expected standard of care.
Therefore, you could make a medical negligence claim if you suffered harm to your rotator cuff due to substandard care. For example:
Staff at an emergency clinic misdiagnose a patient with a pulled muscle instead of a partial rotator cuff tear due to the misinterpretation of an imaging scan. The injury is left untreated, leading to a full, more complex tear.
A surgeon makes an error when they fail to realise they are operating on the wrong part of the shoulder, causing damage to a healthy rotator cuff.
Please note that the above examples are not exhaustive, and rotator cuff injuries could arise in many different scenarios.
To discuss your personal experience with one of our friendly advisors, please contact our team today.
The Process For Claiming After A Rotator Cuff Injury
If you’ve suffered a rotator cuff injury in an accident that was not your fault, the process of claiming involves documenting the harm you suffered and gathering evidence to strengthen your legal position. This means you need to follow several specific steps, as outlined below.
Seek Medical Treatment
Your health and wellbeing are the number one priority, so you should seek treatment for your rotator cuff injuries from your GP, an urgent care clinic or A&E. Not only can early intervention help prevent further tendon or muscle damage, but it can also create an official medical record to help support a claim.
Collect Evidence
Whenever possible, collect evidence showing how the accident occurred and confirming the severity of your rotator cuff injury. This documentation can include imaging scans, CCTV footage, and photographs of any contributing hazards, such as loose carpeting on a hotel staircase or a defective lifting aid at work.
Make Sure That The Accident Is Reported
Depending on the nature of the incident, you can create an official record of the accident by informing your employer, notifying your insurer, or reporting the accident to premises staff. This should outline precisely how you injured your rotator cuff.
Track How Your Rotator Cuff Injury Affects You
You should keep a daily symptoms diary to record the progression of your symptoms, the presence of any chronic pain, and the severity of any restriction in your mobility or ability to reach overhead. Alongside these physical impacts, be sure to also document the financial losses you have incurred because of the rotator cuff tear.
Seek Legal Advice
Obtaining legal advice from a specialist personal injury solicitor can be extremely helpful for your claim. At Legal Expert, we understand that rotator cuff tears often have significant impacts that go beyond physical pain. This is why our solicitors take the time to fully assess your situation, ensuring your claim is accurately valued and your personal needs are met throughout the legal process.
Ensure That You’re Complying With The Time Limits
Your rotator cuff injury claim must be started within 3 years of the accident. To discover more about time limits, please see our dedicated guide on the personal injury claim limitation periods.
To learn more about the types of evidence you could provide, please don’t hesitate to get in touch today.
Claiming Compensation For A Rotator Cuff Injury With Legal Expert
Our solicitors at Legal Expert take a detailed and strategic approach to each claim, ensuring that the long-term impact of your rotator cuff injuries is fully considered. As such, please see the following services that you could enjoy with our expert team:
Why Choose Our Solicitors To Claim Rotator Cuff Injury Compensation
You should choose our solicitors to claim rotator cuff injury compensation due to their focus on building strong evidence, ensuring that your compensation is maximised. Please see the following benefits you could enjoy if you’re connected to a member of our team:
Connecting you with the specialists who can help you, including physiotherapists and occupational therapists experienced with rotator cuff tears.
Keeping you informed at every stage of your rotator cuff injury claim.
Helping you to apply for interim payments to cover any emergency costs that arise during the legal process, such as urgently needed hydrotherapy.
Ensuring that details are not overlooked, such as a lack of PPE or inadequate training that contributed to your rotator cuff injuries.
Explanations of legal terminologies to give you a full understanding of the personal injury claims process.
Compensation For A Rotator Cuff Injury On A No Win No Fee Basis
Our specialist No Win No Fee solicitors have extensive experience handling a wide range of personal injury claims, from the straightforward to the complex. By providing their services under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), our solicitors do not charge for their work at any stage of the claim. This means:
No solicitor service fees at the start of your claim
No service fees at any stage of the process
No service fees to pay if the outcome is unsuccessful.
If your rotator cuff injury claim goes in your favour, you will pay a success fee to your solicitor. Please be aware that the percentage of this fee is capped by law and subtracted from your compensation.
Contact Legal Expert To Begin A Claim
To discover more about claiming compensation for a rotator cuff injury, please get in touch with our advisory team today:
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