Military Injury Claims
Building on his practice in catastrophic / serious injury, Chris has an extensive practice in military claims acting only for Claimants. Chris has spoken at various national and regional APIL Military Special Interest Group seminars, and he is regarded as a military specialist. He fully understands the nuances of the military structure including the downgrading and discharge procedure as well as the challenges of establishing career projections. Chris has a real insight in how to fully and correctly undertake pension loss and loss of military benefits calculations in military cases. He understands the complex interplay between AFCS, GIP’s AFIP’s and how they impact on civil claims and has excellent knowledge of the various JSP publications.
Chris receives instructions from a number of national firms who specialise in military law including claims involving;
- Non-Freezing Cold Injuries (NFCI)
- Freezing injuries (frost bite) and heat injuries
- Serious head or spinal injuries
- Road traffic accidents involving armed forces personnel both in the UK and abroad
- Accidents involving military vehicles
- Injury on operations or on exercise
- Bullying, harassment and assault
- Functional Neurological Disorders (FND)
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) / Complex PTSD
- Hearing loss
- Medical negligence by armed forces personnel
- Failure in diagnosis and to observe medical limitations
- Overuse injuries (i.e. stress fractures etc)
- Delay in medical treatment
- Personal injury caused by defective or inappropriate equipment
- Exposure to toxic substances including chemical agents, asbestos and toxic waste
He regularly successfully settles at joint settlement meetings and has experience of dealing with other very serious injuries involving military personnel.
As a recognised specialist in military claims Chris is instructed on behalf of military personnel who have suffered injuries in a non-military context (i.e. RTA’s etc).
Cases
Spinal Cord Injury – successfully resolved liability on a 100% for a Royal Marine who was rendered tetraplegic during a high intensity interval training and grappling / takedown PT course. During this training and whilst fatigued the Claimant had to take down some colleagues by pushing his head into their sternum and then pulling their hips out to push them to the floor and following them down. During this procedure the Claimant’s head ended up on the side of his colleague’s ribs landing on his head. Claim pleaded in excess of £20m led by Chris Barnes KC.
FND – settled FND case for £1m in addition to a significant AFCS lump sum and annual GIP’s and AFIP.
Overseas Exercises – Chris is acting for a Claimant who was very seriously injured when he was mauled by an elephant whilst on exercise in Kenya.
Assaults – Chris has acted for several Claimants who have been seriously injured following assaults by fellow service personnel often including weapons and often the incidents occurred whilst off duty in circumstances were alcohol has been a contributory factor.
NFCI – multiple; Chris will generally take on and finalise at least 20 NFCI cases per annum with settlements generally ranging from £250,000 to £750,000 depending on the circumstances.
Amputee – Chris acted for a solider who sustained injuries on a UK based army base which resulted in a below knee amputation.
Serious Injury – multiple cases in which settlements have been considerable (see full CV for further details).
MNIHL – Chris has vast experience in dealing with noise induced hearing loss claims (MNIHL for servicemen and women.
