Spinal Injury Claims

What Is a Spinal Injury Claim Worth?

Direct Answer: The 18th edition of the Judicial College Guidelines (published 9 April 2026) sets severity-graded brackets for spinal cord injury. Tetraplegia sits at the top, currently around £428,850 to £533,720. Severe paraplegia with incomplete paralysis and impaired bladder, bowel or sexual function runs roughly £120,340 to £212,670, and severe disc lesions or fractures causing chronic conditions fall around £51,230 to £92,130.

These figures moved up by roughly 8.26% in the 18th edition to reflect Retail Prices Index inflation to August 2025 — the guidelines are periodically revised, so a bracket quoted from an older edition will understate the current figure. They are also non-binding: courts use them as a starting point informed by comparable previous awards, and can depart from them where the facts justify it.

Crucially, these brackets value only general damages — pain, suffering and loss of amenity. They say nothing about the special damages that typically dominate a serious spinal injury claim: past and future lost earnings, the cost of a lifetime of care and case management, home and vehicle adaptations, specialist equipment, and medical and rehabilitation costs. For a catastrophic spinal injury, these figures are routinely many times larger than the general damages award itself.

Why the Discount Rate Matters

Where a claim includes future losses — a lifetime of care costs, or earnings over a working life that will now never be realised — those figures aren't simply added up and paid as a lump sum at face value. They're adjusted using the Personal Injury Discount Rate, which accounts for the fact that a lump sum paid today can be invested and grow over time. The rate is currently +0.5%, effective from 11 January 2025. Because serious spinal injury claims typically have very large future-loss components, even a modest change in this rate can move the overall value of a claim substantially.