Accidents that are caused by inadequate lighting are more common than many of us realise. Poor lighting can cause you to trip over trailing wire or broken pavement, slip on a wet floor, or fall over a missed step. Any of these accidents can result in serious injuries. All employers, property owners, and businesses are legally required to ensure that their premises are well lit to minimise the risk of injury to their workers and visitors.

In this guide to inadequate lighting injury claims, we’ll look at when you might be eligible to claim compensation, common accidents and injuries that can lead to a claim, and how the claims process works. We’ll also explain how our No Win No Fee personal injury solicitors could help you, and what level of compensation might be awarded.

To begin your claim today, please call our claims advisors on 0800 6524 881. If you’d like more information on how inadequate lighting injury claims work before calling, please continue reading.

Inadequate Lighting Hazards & Consequences

There’s no denying that it can be very frustrating to work in a place that’s not well-lit. For one thing, poor lighting at work makes it difficult to see what you’re working on and can cause eye strain in the long run.

Secondly, while moving around in a poorly lit area, you are less likely to spot potential hazards in front of or around you. It increases the risk of tripping over obstacles on the floor or being injured by broken glass. It also increases the risk of slips and falls on a wet floor, or missing your footing as you descend the staircase.

All of these accidents due to inadequate lighting can result in a wide range of injuries from minor cuts, scrapes, and bruises to broken bones, spinal injuries, and brain injuries.

Am I Eligible To Claim Compensation For Injuries Caused By Inadequate Lighting?

Personal injury solicitors who offer No Win No Fee services risk not being paid for their work if a compensation claim is not successful. Therefore, when claiming for an injury caused by inadequate lighting, your solicitor will review your case before accepting it. The types of questions they’ll ask include:

1. Were you owed a duty of care by the person you blame for your injuries (the defendant)?
2. Did they breach that duty of care and, as a result, cause an accident to occur?
3. Did you sustain an injury or injuries as a direct result of that accident?

Where you answer yes to all 3 questions, you could be eligible to claim compensation for any pain and suffering. You might wonder how you prove that a duty of care was owed to you. Well, it’s not something you need to worry too much about because our advisors will know. However, to give an example, your employer has a legal duty of care to protect your well-being in the workplace due to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. If your employer failed in their duty of care and you were injured due to inadequate lighting at work as a result, you could sue them for compensation.

Common Accidents From Poor Lighting

Here are some scenarios that could result in you being injured because of poor lighting:

• Falling down a flight of stairs at work because the lighting was not working.
• Items falling on you in a warehouse because you didn’t see a trip hazard and collided with shelving.
• Cutting yourself on cutting or sawing machinery in a factory with little natural or artificial light
• Tripping on a pothole in a subway because the tunnel was not lit.

Common Injuries From Poor Lighting

You could claim for any injury that was sustained in an accident caused by poor lighting. They can include:

How Much Compensation For An Injury From Inadequate Lighting Could I Claim?

If you do decide to take action, the amount of compensation you’d claim for is likely to be formed by two heads of loss:

• General damages. Your claim can include the pain, suffering and loss of amenity caused by your injuries. Loss of amenity could include a financial value for hobbies or activities that your injuries have stopped you from doing while you recover.
• Special damages. Additionally, you could claim back any costs you’ve had to pay because of your injuries. Examples include the cost of replacing items damaged in your accident, medical costs and lost income.

More on the difference between general and special damages can be found here.

To help assess the extent of your injuries, you’ll likely need to have an independent medical review with a local doctor or other medical professional as part of the claims process. To learn what you could claim for, call our advisors for a free review of your case.

Injury Compensation Calculator

We now want to show you some example compensation figures that might be awarded for your injuries due to inadequate lighting. The figures in our compensation calculator are based on data from the Judicial College and are referred to by solicitors and insurers use when determining compensation values for general damages.

We don’t want you to think these figures are set in stone. Therefore, we should point out that compensation awards will vary depending on the extent of your suffering. If you work with a solicitor from our team, they will be able to provide a compensation estimate that’s more accurate once your injuries have been properly assessed.

Who You Could Claim Compensation Against?

As we’ve established, your inadequate lighting injury claim could be against anybody who owed you a duty of care if their negligence caused you to suffer an injury. Therefore, claims are possible against:

• Your employer.
• A company.
• The local authority or council.
• Your landlord.

Don’t worry about claiming against your employer because, by law, if you have an accident at work your rights mean they cannot sack you or treat you differently for making a claim.

However you’ve suffered, we can help you make an inadequate lighting injury claim. Call today and an advisor will review your case and let you know your options for free.

Evidence To Prove You Were Injured Due To Inadequate Lighting

When making any type of injury claim, you’ll need evidence. It will need to prove who is at fault for your accident, what happened, and what level of injury you sustained. To help with this, we’d advise taking the following actions following an injury due to inadequate lighting:

Seek medical attention – Having your injuries assessed by a medical professional after an accident is crucial. This is regardless of whose fault the accident was and whether or not you intend to pursue an inadequate lighting injury claim. An injury that appears minor at the time of the accident may turn more serious if left unattended. Also, some injuries may be internal and result in serious internal damage unknowingly. If you do decide to pursue a compensation claim, your medical record can serve as evidence supporting your claim.

Report the accident – Reporting the accident creates a written record that makes it difficult for the entity responsible to deny at a later stage. Winning an inadequate lighting compensation claim without a record of the incident having happened can make it more difficult to win compensation.

Who you report the accident to will depend on where it occurred. Workplace accident reports are usually created in an accident book. Road accidents should be reported to the police.

Accidents on business premises such as restaurants, shopping centres, hotels, should be reported to the owner or manager of the premises.

Get photographs and/or videos of the scene of the accident and your injuries – Photographs and videos can provide irrefutable proof that an accident occurred. They can also show the extent of physical injuries so the defendant will find it difficult to deny it later. In some cases, they will even show the cause of the accident. Get photographs from several angles if possible.

Identify witnesses and ask for contact details – Witnesses can help make or break an inadequate lighting injury claim. It may be difficult to show dim lighting in a photograph in poorly lit areas, however, a witness could help. If anybody witnessed the accident, ask if they would mind providing you with their name and contact details so they can back your claim that poor lighting caused your accident.

Speak with a personal injury solicitor – Winning a personal injury claim by yourself may not be easy, especially a claim that points to poor lighting as the cause because the definition of ‘inadequate lighting’ itself could be contested. Our personal injury solicitors have experience in this field and will put together an airtight claim that increases your chances of winning compensation.

Once you’ve got all of the evidence you can collect, please call our team. We’ll review it for free and let you know your options.

Inadequate Lighting Compensation Claims Time Limits

You must abide by the time limits set out in the Limitations Act 1980 when making inadequate lighting injury claims. Generally, adults have 3-years from the date of their accident, or when your injury was diagnosed, to begin a compensation claim.

While this might appear to be a long time, we’d suggest that you start the claims process as early as you can. That’s because your solicitor will have several tasks they need to complete before they file your claim with the defendant. Moreover, you are likely to find it easier to remember the events leading up to your accident the sooner you discuss them.

One exception to the 3-year rule is where the claim is for a child under 18 years old. In this circumstance, a guardian, parent or responsible adult is allowed to claim on the child’s behalf as a litigation friend without worrying about the limitation period. So long as you begin the claim before your child turns 18, we could help you claim.

How A Personal Injury Solicitor Can Help With An Inadequate Lighting Injury Claim

If you decide to proceed to a claim and would like our help, we could appoint a No Win No Fee solicitor from our team to help you. They will do everything to make the claims process as easy as possible for you and keep you updated throughout.

So that you’re not bombarded with tricky medical or legal questions, your solicitor will handle all aspects of communication with the defendant or their legal team for you. If an offer of compensation is made, it will be discussed with you to determine if it is fair. Where necessary, your solicitor will fight your corner to try and achieve a higher settlement figure where needed.

To begin your claim right away, why not call us on 0800 6524 881 today? Our team will review your inadequate lighting injury claim for free and could connect you with our personal injury solicitors right away.