Highland woman receives significant award after A9 collision

Our client was travelling on the A9 when blinding sun caused the vehicles in front of her to collide. Despite managing to carefully avoid the collision herself, she was struck from behind by a van, forcing her car off the carriageway. Moments later, she was struck again by another car, sending her vehicle careering down an embankment.

The respective insurers for the other drivers refused to accept liability for our client’s injuries, both blaming each other.

Due to the number of vehicles involved and the rapid chain of events, it was initially extremely difficult to establish who had caused each separate impact. Our client was understandably shaken by the incident and was unable to say which vehicle was responsible for each impact. It was also unclear whether one or both of the impacts caused injury to her.

As a result Digby Brown personal injury lawyers spent a significant amount of time with the Police to determine who were the relevant parties and piece together the chain of events.

As she had been shaken backwards and forwards in the first impact and then side to side in the second impact, her whiplash injuries were substantial.

In Scotland, you must be able to prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the other party were responsible for causing injury to receive compensation. Sadly, our client’s evidence on its own fell short of being able to satisfy this burden of proof.

At Digby Brown Solicitors, we require all our clients to be examined by specialist medical experts to access the extent of their injuries and this would be key to the issue of which vehicles caused them. Our client was immediately referred to a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and an Orthopaedic Consultant.

The case was a long process and our Inverness based solicitors at Digby Brown ensured that an interim payment was made to our client to relieve some of the financial pressure she was suffering as a result of this accident.

Determined not to back down, the legal team persevered and following lengthy reports and discussions with the orthopaedic consultant, it became evident that the most likely scenario was that both impacts had caused injuries to our client.

As a result of the orthopaedic surgeon’s evidence about the cause of the injuries, the insurers ultimately agreed to split the costs equally between them and a five figure sum was successfully negotiated for our client.