Mother wins No win no fee hearing loss claim
A former AA telephone call handler has won a six-figure personal injury compensation settlement, after making a deafness claim for tinnitus and hearing loss suffered as a result of being provided with a defective headset.
The payout ends the mother-of-one's three-year effort to conclude her deafness claim, which started in 2006 shortly after doctors diagnosed her inner-ear injury.
Settlement was reached following out-of-court negotiations between the 48-year-old's no win no fee solicitor and the AA's insurance representatives. The claimant expressed relief that the case did not have to go to court.
"In December 2005 I reported the fact that the volume on the phone was too loud. There were people on motorway calls shouting down the phone and I could not turn it down," said the claimant.
She added: "I had to wear it round my neck with the loudspeaker on. I reported it to the AA and their answer was 'We know about it, there's a solution in place'.
"The equipment was never changed. One day in April 2006 I started feeling quite dizzy and I said to my husband 'I think there's a hissing noise on this'."
However, when her husband said that he could not hear the hissing noise, the couple realised that the headset might be the problem .
On concluding the £105,000 deafness compensation claim, the woman's solicitor said, "The evidence in support of the case was clear. She had frequently reported her difficulties with the equipment and the medical evidence supported her assertion that the defective equipment was the cause of her injuries."
Updated on 05/03/2010