A serious moped accident in Greece leads to significant knee injury for our client

The Incident

Our client was a 24-year-old door supervisor. The accident happened whilst he was visiting a friend on holiday on a Greek island.

He was a pillion passenger on his friend’s moped, and one evening his friend was driving him around showing him the local sites. As they were proceeding along a two-lane road, a car – being driven by a local resident and coming from the opposite direction – suddenly swerved into their lane and collided with the moped, causing our client to be thrown to the ground.

As a result of the accident our client sustained a significant knee injury. This involved damage to two ligaments, the lateral meniscus, and caused instability in the knee joint. He also sustained profound psychological injury, primarily in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The accident took place shortly before the onset of the Covid pandemic, and therefore there was a significant delay in our client being able to have the specialist knee surgery he required to aid his recovery.

He was absent from his job as a door supervisor because of his knee injury and, ultimately, was unable to return to this employment. However thankfully, following surgery, he was able to secure alternative, office based employment, at which he has excelled. However the nature of his injuries meant he wouldn’t be able to return to pre accident hobbies, such as running and football.

The Case

The accident took place in Greece, which meant that Greek law applied to liability and the assessment of damages (i.e. how much the claim was worth).

We therefore obtained expert evidence from a Greek lawyer, and instructed a translator in order to translate the police report. Liability was admitted at an early stage, so the case was really about how much compensation the claimant would be awarded.

We obtained medial evidence from a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and a psychologist, to build an accurate picture of our client’s physical and psychological injuries. We then sent the evidence we had obtained to a Greek lawyer who specialises in personal injury, and he produced a report setting out the potential value of the claim under Greek law.

We also had to be mindful of the effect that Brexit would have on the claim as, if we didn’t issue proceedings before the end of the Brexit transition period, our client might have lost his right to sue the Greek insurer of the vehicle in the English Court.

We therefore made sure to issue and serve Court proceedings prior to the end of the transition period, and the case was eventually listed for a 3 day trial.

The Case Outcome

The Defendant’s first settlement offer was for £40,000. This was rejected by our client and we worked hard to build the evidence to support his case.

In the end the case settled for a much higher sum; £125,000, two months before the trial was due to begin.