Who pays the cost of medical assessments for personal injury claims?

Sadly, the costs of traveling to and from a medical assessment are not a recoverable cost – certainly not a cost that you are automatically entitled to recover. In normal circumstances, the costs of attending a medical assessment will be minimal as it is extremely unusual for any claimant to be forced to travel beyond a local area to see an expert and the need to seek overnight accommodation is unlikely to be accepted by a defendant in any event.

Have you asked your Solicitor if it is possible to have the assessment carried out remotely via a video call?

Solicitors in Northern Ireland are governed by the Law Society of NI and it is not permitted for Solicitors to practice a No Win No Fee method of running personal injury claims.

We can assist with linking people with a specialist Solicitor able to operate within the Northern Ireland legislative framework and would recommend that you seek help from a specialist in Northern Ireland’s personal injury sector for detailed advice regarding the process.

If your Solicitor instructed a medical expert to provide the report, you should not be paying the costs for any scan as the Solicitor should do this and recover the costs in due course.

You need to ask the Solicitors for a written breakdown of the total claim settlement and what has been allowed for various things – including treatment costs. It could well be that the Solicitor had to fund the cost of rehab treatments and that they must then deduct those from the total settlement amount.

After 5 years my daughter has accepted a nett settlement figure, her solicitor has written to say that the other side will not accept his costs and he is trying to resolve this. She has signed the acceptance of the settlement figure nett so will she have to pay costs out of this if solicitor cannot get third party to accept his costs?

It is unlikely that the defendant will not accept any of the Solicitors costs. The Solicitor may have to explain certain costs, but it should be resolved in your daughters favour. However, claimants do face the prospect of contributing to their Solicitors costs in some circumstances. However, in a No Win No Fee case, any such contribution towards the claimants Solicitors costs should be capped at 25% of any agreed settlement.

Medical expert report costs are usually a recoverable cost. However, before instructing a specialist, it is wise to ensure that the defendant agrees to the instruction and costs of the report.

If there is a demonstrable inaccuracy in a medical report, it should be pointed out and notified to both sides as in that case, a further report can be instructed and the claimant would not bear the cost.

However, if you simply have a view that your report is deficient in some way and you wish to seek a further report from a different expert, the other side are unlikely to pay the cost of that and you would have to undertake to pay that cost.