Our Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) solicitors were able to settle a compensation claim for PTSD in the military for over £2 million. Our client had developed symptoms while serving in the army in Iraq.
What happened?
Mr B* joined the army in the footsteps of his father with the desire to make a positive impact. He completed multiple tours of Kosovo and Iraq during his service.
He first noticed a change to his mental health during his final tour of Iraq, where he started to have intrusive memories and disturbed sleep.
After several years under the Departments of Community Mental Health (DCMH), where he got a formal PTSD diagnosis, he was medically discharged from the military in 2018.
How did Irwin Mitchell help?
Mr B came to our specialist AFCS team shortly before his medical discharge. He'd already submitted an AFCS claim for PTSD, which was accepted on an interim basis, for review in two years.
After his discharge, Mr B was unable to work and kept receiving input from NHS mental health teams, both as an inpatient and within the community.
The team identified from medical records that trauma-focussed treatment had been attempted on several occasions. But due to high risk to Mr B’s life when this was started, a decision had been made at Consultant level, to stop all further treatment. As a result, Mr B couldn’t complete a full course of EMDR or any further trauma therapy.
To reach the highest awards for a mental health condition, a claimant must be able to prove that the criteria for “permanent” has been satisfied. To meet this, you need to be able to evidence that you've had appropriate clinical management of adequate duration. You must also show you've reached a steady or stable state of maximum medical improvement, with no further improvement expected.
The team worked tirelessly to gather supporting evidence, which included witness statements and medico-legal reports, to support Mr B’s claim.
After many arguments and challenges to the decisions made by Veterans UK, it was accepted that Mr B did meet the criteria for “permanent”. As a result, they made an award at Level 8.
Battling for the highest settlement
Unfortunately, Veterans UK didn’t fully consider Mr B’s ongoing functional limitations and restrictions. He’d been unable to undertake any paid work since discharge from the military.
The AFCS team considered this decision and felt that it wasn’t the correct award for Mr B. They then persisted with gathering further supporting evidence and making a fresh challenge to the decision. An increase to the award was made, which resulted in a Level 6 award.
Still unconvinced that this was the right award for Mr B, a decision was made to take the matter to appeal. The team set about gathering more detailed evidence to meet the very specific criteria of the highest award for a mental health condition, at Level 4.
Despite Veterans UK maintaining that Mr B didn’t meet or have the evidence to support the criteria for a Level 4 award, it was found at Tribunal that the evidence did fully support and satisfy the criteria for a Level 4 award.
The written reasons given by the Tribunal stated that it was evident in the records that tertiary invention had been met. But equally, it can’t be right that someone who’s well enough to undergo and complete some form of tertiary care can fall within the Level 4 award, but someone who’s too unwell to complete this can’t.
A £2 million settlement
The Tribunal made the award of a Level 4. This resulted in a lump sum payment of £298,700, with guaranteed income payment of 100% of his military salary tax free, index linked, for life.
When applying the lifetime factor and appropriate benefits that can be claimed when achieving over a Level 8 award, the total lifetime value of Mr B’s award was more than £2 million. This was a lifechanging settlement for Mr B and his family.
*Names not accurate to protect client identity.
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