Soft Tissue Injury Compensation - How Much Compensation Can I Claim?

Soft tissue injury compensation can be sought after many different accidents. These types of injuries can vary greatly in severity. Many soft tissues are used for movement such as tendons and ligaments, as well as supporting our skeleton. This means any injury to them can have substantial effects on your day-to-day life.

This guide examines when you could be eligible to claim for a soft tissue injury, as well as explaining how these types of harm can occur. You will also see a table with guideline compensation figures, and an explanation of how these values may be calculated.

At the bottom of our guide, we look at the No Win No Fee contract offered by our panel of dedicated personal injury solicitors.

For more information or a free eligibility assessment, talk to our team today using the contact information provided here:

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Browse Our Guide

How Much Compensation Could You Get For A Soft Tissue Injury In The UK?
Am I Eligible To Claim Soft Tissue Injury Compensation?
Common Causes Of Soft Tissue Injuries That Lead To Claims
What Kinds Of Soft Tissue Injury Can I Claim For?
How To Make A Soft Tissue Injury Claim
How Our Panel Of Solicitors Can Help You Claim
More Information

How Much Compensation Could You Get For A Soft Tissue Injury In The UK?

If you suffered a soft tissue injury, you likely want to know how much compensation you could be awarded. No two claims are alike, which means that different amounts of compensation will apply depending on the circumstances. Therefore, we can only tell you how compensation could be awarded in this guide. However, if you would like a more accurate idea of how much your soft tissue injury claim could be worth, speak to one of our team members.

Two different heads of claim are relevant to seeking soft tissue injury compensation. These are general and special damages, which compensate for physical and psychological distress, and out-of-pocket expenses, respectively.

Those tasked with calculating a possible general damages figure can look at your medical documents alongside the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This publication contains guideline compensation figures for various injuries, a relevant selection of which have been used here.

Please be advised that the top entry is not a JCG figure. This information has been included for guidance purposes only.

Type of Injury	Severity	Guideline Compensation Figure	Notes
Multiple Very Serious Injuries as well as Significant Financial Losses	Very Serious	Up to £250,000 and Above	Multiple very serious injuries with financial losses such a loss of earnings, medical expenses, home modifications and care needs.
Chest Injuries	Traumatic Injury (b)	£80,240 to £122,850	Traumatic injuries causing permanent damage, functional impairment and reduced life expectancy.
	Continuing Disability (c)	£38,210 to £66,920	Damage to the chest and lungs resulting in some continuing disabilities.
Back Injuries	Severe (a)(iii)	£47,320 to £85,100	Cases involving disc lesions, fractures or soft tissue damage, giving rise to chronic conditions and where, despite treatment, disabilities remain.
	Moderate (b)(ii)	£15,260 to £33,880	Disturbance of ligaments and muscles causing the acceleration or exacerbation of existing conditions.
Neck Injuries	Severe (a)(iii)	£55,500 to £68,330	Fractures, dislocations, severe damage to soft tissues and ruptured tendons giving rise to chronic conditions and significant permanent disabilities.
	Moderate (b)(i)	£30,500 to £46,970	Severe immediate symptoms caused by serious soft tissue damage, fractures or dislocations.
Less Serious Leg Injuries	Less Serious (c)(i)	£21,920 to £33,880	Serious soft tissue injuries to one or both legs causing cosmetic deficit and functional restriction.
	Less Serious (c)(iii)	Up to £14,450	Muscle tears, lacerations, and bruising from which a complete recovery is made, or only minor residual disabilities remain.
Digestive System - Traumatic Injuries	Penetrating Wounds (b)(iii)	£8,060 to £15,370	Stab wounds, industrial laceration and serious seat-belt pressure wounding.

Using Our Compensation Calculator For Soft Tissue Injuries

You may like to use our compensation calculator for an estimate of how much you could claim, especially if the injuries you suffered aren’t included in our table above. The figures used for general damages in our calculator are from the same document as used in our table. For help using the compensation calculator, speak to a member of our advisory team.

Special Damages In Relation To Your Claim

You can also claim compensation for the financial harm caused by your injuries under special damages. A soft tissue injury can have serious impacts on your mobility and require significant physiotherapy, affecting your ability to work and carry out daily activities.

As special damages account for both current and future losses, it is very common for these payouts to be much higher than anything awarded under general damages. We have provided a few examples here:

Lost income.
Medical expenses.
Care costs.
Travel.
Home adaptations.

Remember to hold onto copies of any documentation as proof of the losses you incurred. This could be your payslips, invoices for care, travel tickets and other bills.

This section is intended to provide guidance on how soft tissue injury compensation may be calculated, not guarantee a payout value or state expressly what costs you can be reimbursed for. To get a more personalised idea of what your potential claim could be worth, talk to our advisors for a free assessment today.

Am I Eligible To Claim Soft Tissue Injury Compensation?

Claiming soft tissue injury compensation will require you to meet certain eligibility criteria. These remain broadly the same no matter the circumstances of your accident. In short, you will need to show with clear evidence that a third party owed you a duty of care and that a breach of this duty caused you to be injured.

A duty of care is a legal responsibility to ensure the reasonable safety of another. The duties of care owed by different third parties have been briefly explained here:

Employers are required to take reasonable steps to ensure worker safety as per the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
Those in control of public places, known as “occupiers,” are required to take steps to ensure the reasonable safety of any visitors in line with the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957.
Road users must navigate the road network in such a way that minimises the risk of causing harm to each other. This means upholding the standards of both the Highway Code and Road Traffic Act 1988.

The eligibility criteria in personal injury claims can therefore be summarised as follows:

A third party owed you a duty of care.
This duty was breached in some way.
That breach caused an accident in which you suffered soft tissue injuries.

To find out more about claiming in your particular circumstances, talk to our advisory team today.

Common Causes Of Soft Tissue Injuries That Lead To Claims

“Soft tissue” refers to any tissue in your body that isn’t part of your skeleton. This includes skin, muscle and fat, as well as connective tissues such as ligaments and tendons. Soft tissue injuries can be caused in almost any accident, a few examples of which are discussed below.

Accidents At Work

A lack of suitable manual handling training resulted in you attempting to lift a box of goods that two people should have carried. You tore a tendon in your shoulder while trying to carry the heavy load.

Road Traffic Accidents

A driver ran through a red light and crashed into your car in a rear-end collision. The collision resulted in whiplash injuries to your neck as well as major bruising to your chest and abdominal region.

Accidents In Public Places

A pothole in a public park had been reported to the council. Despite having knowledge of the hazard, no action was taken to complete the repair, nor was a warning sign placed. You were jogging in the park and tripped over the pothole, badly spraining your ankle.

There are of course, many other accidents that soft tissue injury compensation can be claimed for. For a free eligiblity assessment in your particular circumstances, talk to our team today using the details provided below.

What Kinds Of Soft Tissue Injury Can I Claim For?

A soft tissue injury is any damage to soft bodily tissues. These can range from relatively minor injuries, such as a strained muscle, to serious damage to the soft tissues in the spine.

As this is a very broad category of injury, we have provided a few examples of soft tissue damage you could claim compensation for have been set out here:

Damage to tendons and ligaments.
Skin lacerations.
Muscle tears.
Nerve damage.
Injuries to internal organs.
Ruptured blood vessels.

You can get your eligiblity to claim assessed for free by talking to our advisors.

How To Make A Soft Tissue Injury Claim

We fully understand how intimidating starting the soft tissue injury compensation claims process can seem. While a solicitor from our panel will explain everything to you if you are eligible to claim, in this section we provide some more information on a few key areas.

Gather The Right Evidence To Support A Claim

Evidence is how you prove liability during the claims process. Your evidence will also show what injuries you sustained and their severity, something that will greatly help solicitors accurately evaluate your injuries.

The evidence available to you will vary depending on the circumstances of your accident. We have set out a few general examples here:

Medical records that highlight what harm has been caused. This can include copies of x-rays and other scans, examination notes and the results of any tests that were performed.
CCTV or dash cam footage of the accident occurring.
Photographs of your injuries, the scene of the accident and what caused it.
A copy of your incident report from the workplace accident book.
Contact information for potential witnesses. The solicitor will take statements at a later date.

Gathering evidence is one of the many tasks a solicitor could support you with. To find out if you’re eligible to work with a personal injury expert from our dedicated panel, contact our advisors for a free assessment today.

Time Limits – How Long You Have To Claim

In most personal injury cases, any legal action will need to be started within 3 years of the accident occurring, as established by the Limitation Act 1980. Now, there are exceptions to the general rules that may arise. For example:

Children cannot claim for themselves. Any injured persons under 18 will have the 3 years counted from their 18th birthday.
Someone who does not possess the mental capacity to claim for themselves will have the time limit halted indefinitely.

In order to get a claim underway much sooner, a parent, legal guardian or other suitable adult can apply to act as a litigation friend for the injured person. Litigation friends have the authority to make decisions about the claim for the injured person and attend court in their stead if there’s a hearing.

Any compensation awarded to a minor will be held by the Court Funds Office (CFO) until they reach maturity. You can find out more about the time limits, and check if any exceptions are applicable in your circumstances by speaking to one of our advisors.

How Long It Takes On Average To Get Compensation

This is something we can’t give you an exact timeframe for. While the solicitors we work with will do their utmost to complete your claim as quickly as possible, there are factors that are outside of their control.

For example, there could be delays in acquiring medical evidence, or if the defendants don’t admit liability straight away, settlement negotiations can take longer. Your solicitor will keep you updated on all developments during the claim process. Check your eligibility for free by contacting our advisors today.

How Our Panel Of Solicitors Can Help You Claim

While you are under no obligation to instruct a solicitor to handle your case, there are key advantages to doing so. As well as having a trained legal professional to offer advice and guidance throughout the claim, there are a number of key tasks they can undertake for you including:

Negotiating with the defendant’s representatives.
Calculating an accurate compensation figure.
Explaining all the technical terms and legal jargon.
Ensuring compliance with all court instructions and deadlines.
Bringing forward your claim within the relevant time limit.

Our panel of expert solicitors can offer eligible claimants a particular type of No Win No Fee contract called a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), which gives some considerable advantages over other types of contract such as:

Not paying any solicitor fees at the start of the claim.
You will also not have to pay any fees as the case progresses.
Lastly, if the claim fails, there will be no fees to pay for your solicitor’s work on it.

If you win your claim, you will receive soft tissue injury compensation. The solicitor will take a legally capped percentage as a success fee from this compensation. The cap means that the majority of any payout is yours to keep.