Drug driving: Passenger receives significant settlement following serious collision

Our client had been drinking and socialising with friends when the defendant offered her a lift home. During the journey, his driving became erratic. He lost control of the vehicle, which left the carriageway and collided with trees.

Following the collision, the police tested the driver and found him to be high on cannabis. He was prosecuted for causing serious injury by dangerous driving and driving while under the influence of drugs.

The defendant’s motor insurer refused to indemnify its policyholder but remained liable under section 151 of the Road Traffic Act. The insurer initially argued that illegality provided a complete defence to the claim. It said our client had accepted the lift when she should have known that the driver was intoxicated through drugs.

The insurer also alleged that our client was partly responsible for her injuries because she had not been wearing a seatbelt.

Our lawyers successfully rebutted this allegation. Ambulance records and vehicle examination notes provided objective evidence that the offside rear seatbelt had been in use during the collision.

Our client suffered a significant head injury, multiple orthopaedic injuries and psychological symptoms. She lost consciousness in the collision and experienced around eight days of post-traumatic amnesia. During this period, she lost her memory and could not recall family visiting her in hospital over Christmas.

The effects continued after she left hospital. She became a very nervous passenger and delayed learning to drive. In her early 20s at the time, she was also very self-conscious about the residual scarring from the surgery she required.

Our experts gathered specialist evidence to understand the lasting impact of the collision.

Evidence from a neurologist, neuropsychologist and neuroradiologist supported the case that our client had experienced significant cognitive impairment, as well as changes to her personality and behaviour. Further expert evidence was obtained in spinal orthopaedic surgery, plastic surgery, psychiatry and pain management to assess her ongoing symptoms.

This evidence helped establish the different ways in which our client’s injuries continued to affect her life.

Our lawyers secured interim payments while the claim was ongoing. The defendant’s insurers also funded private psychological treatment under the Rehabilitation Code 2015.

Our client found this treatment extremely helpful. In particular, it provided coping strategies when she began taking driving lessons.

At the time of the collision, our client was studying at college and planned to attend university to train as a lawyer. Her head injury affected her studies, causing problems with her memory and concentration.

Fadwa Errhioui helped secure a six-figure settlement for our client. The compensation reflected both the injuries she had suffered and their continuing consequences.

The settlement included compensation for future loss of earnings and care that had been provided by her family. It also provided for future treatment for her scarring, ongoing psychological treatment and vocational rehabilitation.

By the conclusion of the case, our client had found alternative employment and had fully engaged with rehabilitation to maximise her recovery.

The case involved challenges over liability as well as detailed evidence about the physical, cognitive and psychological consequences of our client’s injuries.

The six-figure settlement recognised those consequences and made provision for losses and support identified in the claim, including future earnings, psychological treatment, treatment for scarring and vocational rehabilitation.