Personal damages

Personal injury is the collective term for damages as a consequence of personal injury and loss of dependency. The legal basis for these types of damages can be found in article 107 and 108 of Book 6 of the Dutch Civil Code.

A proper handling of personal injury and loss of dependency is considered vital in The Netherlands. The Personal Injury Council (Letselschade Raad) has issued various guidelines which parties in principle need to adhere to – special circumstances excluded. Also, a special legal procedure has been established, the so-called partial dispute resolution procedure (deelgeschillenprocedure).

Van Traa’s lawyers are very experienced and knowledgeable in this area of law and in these kinds of dispute resolution procedures. In general, Van Traa represents the defendants and their insurers.

The discussion regarding liability is inherent to personal injury and loss of dependency cases. Most of these cases are caused by traffic accidents, aviation accidents or company accidents. Employment related illness also fits this legal area’s profile.

In the event that liability for personal injury and loss of dependency is (fully or partially) established, it must be assessed exactly what damage is the result of the accident. The discussion in this respect is highly specialised and requires proper knowledge of medical issues. In these types of cases, information from the medical sector is obtained and physicians are requested to comment on the consequences of the accident and the causation between, what is often, the continuing impact for the person having suffered the personal injury as a consequence of the accident.

Van Traa’s specialised lawyers have this knowledge,owing to the specialised training they have received, such as the LSA Grotius Opleiding Personenschade. Furthermore, most are members of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Vereniging van Letselschade Advocaten).

Once it has been established that certain damages have been caused by the accident, the financial consequences need to be defined. This often concerns complex calculations, for instance in the event that there is a permanent inability to do paid work. In this area there are also specialized experts who, with the aid of computer models, can also make such calculations for the future

It therefore requires Van Traa's lawyers to have a thorough knowledge of financial and fiscal aspects as well as of the Dutch benefit systems on the basis of the social security legislation.