In general: no. An adult who has suffered a personal injury usually has to bring a compensation claim for themselves and in their own name.
However, there are situations in which you can make a compensation claim on a loved one’s behalf:
- If they lack the ‘mental capacity’ required. In the legal sense of the phrase, this means if your loved one can’t take in information, process and consider it, and then you can may be able to make a decision on their behalf.
- If your loved one has sadly passed away. If you have been appointed as their personal representative you can bring a claim on behalf of their estate.
- If you have been granted a Power of Attorney by your loved one. A Power of Attorney gives you legal authority to act on someone’s behalf. However, the extent of what you can and can’t do for them depends upon the contents of the Power itself.
When a loved one in a care home has suffered an injury they might not want the ‘hassle’ of bringing a care home compensation claim, or may want to avoid ‘making a fuss’. This is perfectly understandable.
However, Truth Legal has helped many people through the care home compensation claims process. Our expertise and experience ensures that we can conduct your claim as quickly and painlessly as possible. We passionately believe in the good that personal injury claims can do: making the negligent party pay for their mistakes, ensuring that they don’t treat other people in the same way, and as result taking the burden off the State.
The fact is: if sub-standard care or other mistreatment has caused your loved one an injury, they deserve to be compensated. Shouldn’t those who have caused the pain and suffering be held to account for what they have done? Shouldn’t they be given a strong incentive to ensure that this should not be allowed to happen to anyone else?
