Compensation obtained for widower after wife’s tragic death in road crash

Our client’s wife was a part-time teacher and the couple had two adult children. One of their children had a life-threatening medical condition and relied on her mother for care and assistance.

She provided extensive practical and emotional support to her daughter during her illness and ongoing treatment. She also spent considerable time looking after the family home. Our client worked full time and relied on his wife for support and to care for their children.

In September 2020, our client’s wife was stationary behind another car at traffic lights, waiting to turn right. A van travelling behind the vehicles failed to stop and collided with the rear of her car.

The impact pushed her car into the vehicle ahead and onto the opposite side of the carriageway, where it was struck by an oncoming vehicle.

Our client’s wife suffered a catastrophic brain injury in the collision. She was taken by air ambulance to a major trauma centre specialising in brain injury.

She did not regain consciousness and died 17 days after the collision.

Our experts were instructed to bring claims on behalf of her estate under the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 and a dependency claim under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976.

The dependency claim considered the past and future losses caused by her death. This included the care she would have provided to their daughter and the services she would have continued to provide within the family home.

The defendant insurers admitted liability in December 2020 and reimbursed the funeral expenses. Our client also received the statutory bereavement award of £15,120 following the admission of fault.

A significant part of the legal work involved understanding the care and support our client’s wife would have provided to their daughter if the collision had not happened.

Our experts obtained evidence from a leading medical expert in the relevant field and an experienced nursing care expert. The medical expert considered how the daughter’s condition was expected to develop, while the nursing care expert assessed the care her mother could reasonably have been expected to provide.

Our lawyers also gathered further expert evidence to understand the wider support our client had lost following his wife’s death.

This allowed the legal team to prepare a schedule of loss setting out the family’s past and future losses. The assessment considered the time our client’s wife would have spent providing nursing care and carrying out practical responsibilities including housekeeping, household administration, managing finances, decorating and DIY, window cleaning, gardening, car cleaning and dog walking.

The team calculated the number of hours she would have spent carrying out these responsibilities each week. This evidence helped build a detailed picture of the practical contribution she would have continued to make to her family.

Once the schedule of loss had been prepared, specialist counsel was instructed to advise on the claim and later represent our client at an in-person joint settlement meeting.

Negotiations with the defendant representatives continued for around seven hours. The claim ultimately settled for a sum substantially higher than the defendant insurers’ counter schedule.

Our client was extremely satisfied with the outcome. The case also showed why understanding an individual family’s circumstances can be so important in a fatal accident claim. In this case, the care our client’s wife would have continued to provide to her daughter, alongside her wider contribution to family life, formed an important part of assessing what had been lost.

No settlement can undo the loss our client and his family experienced. The legal work focused on making sure the claim properly reflected the practical support and care his wife would have continued to provide.

By examining the family’s circumstances in detail and gathering specialist evidence about the daughter’s medical condition and care needs, the legal team was able to present a claim that reflected those individual circumstances. The eventual settlement was substantially higher than the defendant insurers’ counter schedule.