Regardless of the situation in which you sustained facial scarring, in order to make claims for facial scar compensation claims in Ireland, the accident in which you sustained the injury must be the result of the carelessness of somebody who owed you a reasonable duty of care. This does not mean that person had to be physically present at the time of your face injury in order to seek compensation for facial scarring – just that their negligence was the reason why your face injury occurred.
Often, it may not even be one person against whom a facial scarring claim for compensation is made. Compensation claims for facial scarring injuries can be made against corporate bodies, local councils and State agencies who have failed in their duty of care to protect you from foreseeable risks and, once it is established that the incident in which your face was injured could have been prevented had greater care been taken by one of these "third parties", you will be eligible to make a claim for facial scars and recover compensation for your injury.
In most scenarios, the procedure for making compensation claims for facial scarring injuries in Ireland is to submit an application for assessment to the Injuries Board; who will then contact the person(s) named on your application and request their consent to proceed with an assessment of your facial scarring claim for compensation. The analysis of facial scar compensation claims is only performed when consent from the "respondent" has been received.
At this point, there is no need for you to submit evidence of negligence in support of a claim for facial scars; however, in the event that the respondent declines their consent, you may then have to pursue compensation for facial scarring through the courts. Court action is not always necessary, as many claims for facial scar compensation claims in Ireland are resolved by negotiation; however, in order to get a satisfactory resolution of your claim for facial scars, it is in your best interests that negligence is established before an injury claim is started.
In order for a party to be considered liable for your face injury, it has to be determined that they owed you a "duty of care" and failed to perform this duty of care when your face was injured. For example, the driver of a car has a duty of care to avoid creating an accident, an employer has a duty of care to give a safe environment in which to work and places of public access have a duty of care to prevent hazards which may result in an accident in which a face injury is sustained.
However, a duty of care is not necessarily "absolute". This means, for instance, that if you injure your face after slipping and falling in a shop on a substance that had just been spilled by the shopper in front of you, and the shop staff did not have enough time in which to identify and remove the hazard, you would not be entitled to claim compensation for facial scarring injury.
The process for making compensation claims for facial scarring injuries in Ireland is to submit an application for assessment to the Injuries Board. This can be done using a hard copy of the Assessment Form A or by making your application for the assessment of compensation for facial scarring injury online (except in the case of facial scar compensation claims for children). Your assessment application should be accompanied by your doctor´s medical examination of your facial scarring injury (Assessment Form B) and receipts for any financial expenses you wish to reclaim.
Once the Injuries Board Ireland receives consent from the negligent party to continue with an assessment, you may need to undergo a further medical examination to determine the extent of your facial injury – after which the Injuries Board will issue a "Notice of Assessment" to instruct you and the negligent party of how much they have analysed your claim for facial scars for. If both you and the negligent party can verify the Injuries Board´s assessment of your facial scarring claim for compensation, an "Order to Pay" is made and your claim will be finished by the negligent party´s insurance company.
The possibility of court action may sometimes dissuade plaintiffs from making compensation claims for facial scarring injuries; however insurance companies are often even less keen to litigate a facial scarring claim for compensation in court. The costs of litigation in Ireland are high and, no matter how justified the insurance company feel they are in rejecting their policyholder´s responsibility for your face injury, the financial risk they are initiating (that a court will find in your favour) often provokes an out of court settlement of compensation for facial scarring without the admission of liability.
This is particularly true when litigation in court may be needed to resolve a dispute over how much your claim for facial scars is worth. Courts tend to frown upon financial disputes of this nature, and both parties will be urged to negotiate a facial scar compensation claims settlement before an appearance in court is necessary. In most compensation claims for facial scarring injuries in Ireland, your solicitor will approach the negligent party´s insurers at the same time as an assessment is submitted to the Injuries Board, and will be able to advise you at an early stage whether or not court action to resolve your claim for facial scars is a possibility.
No two compensation claims for facial scarring injuries in Ireland are identical – regardless of how similar the circumstances of the accident were – and it is always recommended for you to discuss your accident and face injury with a solicitor at the earliest possible moment. A solicitor will be able to help with potential issues such as establishing liability for your face injury, collecting evidence of negligence on your account and ensuring that your application for the assessment of facial scar compensation claims to the Injuries Board appropriately reflects the consequences that your injured face have made to your quality of life.
A face injury can often be a debilitating experience, and although no amount of compensation for facial scarring can ever make up for the negligence of the person who was to blame for your injury, it costs nothing to find out whether you have a facial scarring claim for compensation which it is worth your while to pursue. Therefore, you are advised to assess your eligibility to make a compensation claim for facial scars with a solicitor at the earliest possible opportunity.