Knee Injury Claims
Get your knee injury claim assessed, free of charge
A damaged knee changes the ordinary parts of life first: stairs, driving, standing at work, sleeping through the night. If your injury was caused by someone else’s negligence, whether at work, on the road, in a public place or playing sport, you may be able to bring a claim. We handle knee injury claims on a No Win No Fee basis and will tell you honestly where you stand.
Regulated solicitors
Years' experience
No Win No Fee
Can you make a knee injury claim?
A claim is possible where someone else owed you a duty to keep you reasonably safe, fell short of it, and your knee injury followed. That covers an employer, a driver, a council, the occupier of a shop or car park, or the organiser of a sport. You do not have to prove any of it yourself, and you do not need to know which category your accident falls into before you ring.
Where the accident happened matters less than who was accountable for it. An employer who left a floor unsafe, a driver who pulled out without looking, a council responsible for a broken pavement, an occupier who ignored a known hazard: the legal question is the same in each case, even though the evidence differs. If you are not sure which of those describes your accident, that is a normal place to start from, and it is what a free assessment is for.
How most knee injury claims begin
The knee takes the impact in a great many everyday accidents. It twists when a foot catches on an uneven surface, it strikes the dashboard in a collision, it takes the load when someone lifts badly or lands awkwardly. Because the joint carries body weight and depends on ligaments and cartilage that heal slowly, an injury that looks minor at the scene often turns out not to be.
People often delay getting advice because they expect the knee to settle down. Some do. When one does not, and the accident was somebody else’s fault, a claim can cover the treatment, the lost earnings and the longer-term effects that follow.
working people were injured at work in Great Britain in 2024/25
Of those, 59,219 employee injuries were formally reported by employers under RIDDOR, which gives a sense of how many go unrecorded. Work is only one setting: knee injuries also follow road traffic collisions, accidents in public places and sport. No single figure counts knee claims, so treat this as context rather than a measure of how common they are.
Source: Health and Safety Executive, key figures for Great Britain, 2024/25.
Common causes of knee injury claims
Knee injuries reach us from every kind of accident. These are the settings we see most often.
Accidents at work
Falls from height, crush injuries, kneeling work without proper matting, or lifting that was never risk assessed. A knee injury at work is the most common way a claim reaches us, and your employer’s insurance meets it rather than your employer.
Road traffic collisions
Dashboard impacts, motorcycle and cycling crashes, and injuries to pedestrians struck at knee height.
Slips, trips and falls
Wet floors without warning, raised paving, poor lighting or worn stair treads in shops, workplaces and public spaces.
Sport and recreation
Dangerous pitches, defective equipment or a tackle that went beyond what the game accepts as ordinary risk.
Accidents in public places
Potholes, unsafe car parks, poorly maintained pavements and hazards an occupier knew about and left.
Wear from the job itself
Damage built up over years of kneeling, climbing or heavy lifting where an employer failed to protect you. The three year limit runs from when you connected the damage to the job, not from a date nobody recorded.
Types of knee injury we handle claims for
You do not need to know the medical name for what happened. Describe the accident and the symptoms, and the medical evidence will do the rest.
Why settling a knee claim too early
can cost you
Knee injuries are not always finished when they feel finished. A joint that has been fractured or has lost cartilage carries a raised risk of arthritis in later life, and some people who recover well at first need surgery years afterwards. An offer that looks reasonable at six months can look very different once that becomes clear.
Once a claim is settled, it is generally settled for good, even if the knee deteriorates later. That is why medical evidence on the long-term outlook matters so much here, and why an early offer from an insurer deserves scrutiny rather than relief. Where there is a real risk of serious deterioration, the law does in some circumstances allow that possibility to be dealt with separately, and a solicitor can advise whether that applies to you.
- Has a specialist given an opinion on how the knee is likely to be in ten years?
- Does the offer account for further surgery if it is needed?
- Does it reflect work you may not be able to return to?
- Has anyone explained what you would be giving up by accepting it?
If an insurer has already approached you directly, speak to a solicitor before you agree to anything. Checking an offer costs you nothing.
How much compensation can you get
for a knee injury?
There is no set amount, and any website that quotes you one before seeing your medical evidence is guessing. Knee injury compensation claims vary widely: two people with the same diagnosis can have very different claims, because what the law compensates is the effect on your life, not the label on the scan.
A claim is made up of two parts. General damages cover the injury itself: the pain, the recovery, and any lasting limitation. Special damages cover what it has cost you, such as lost earnings, treatment, travel, care from family and adaptations at home.
Once the medical evidence is in, your solicitor will explain what your claim is likely to include and why. We will not put a figure on it before then.
- How severe the injury is, and whether surgery was or will be needed
- Whether you have made a full recovery, and how long it took
- The effect on your job, particularly physical or standing work
- The risk of arthritis or further surgery in future
- Your financial losses, evidenced by payslips, receipts and records
Why the compensation figures you see online do not agree
If you have already searched this, you will have found figures that contradict each other, and there is a reason for that.
We compared four pages currently ranking on the first page for knee injury compensation. For the same description of a serious knee injury, the highest range one of them quotes begins above where the lowest range another quotes ends. Not one of the four says which edition of the Judicial College Guidelines its figures came from.
The brackets are revised every couple of years. A figure copied from an older edition and left on a page looks authoritative and is simply out of date, which is why we will not publish one we cannot stand behind. Those tables also leave out your lost earnings and your treatment costs, and that is frequently the larger half of a claim.
Evidence that supports a
knee injury claim
Most of this is straightforward to obtain, and we do the obtaining. If you have nothing at all, that is not a reason to hold off calling.
Missing most of this? Call anyway. Records can be requested, and footage can sometimes still be secured if we act quickly.
No Win No Fee knee injury claims
A No Win No Fee agreement, properly called a Conditional Fee Agreement, means there is nothing to pay upfront. If the claim does not succeed, you do not pay us for our work, subject to the terms of your agreement.
If it succeeds, a success fee agreed with you in advance is deducted from your compensation. Insurance is usually arranged to protect you against the other side’s costs. All of it is set out in writing and explained before you sign anything, and you are free to ask as many questions as you need to first.
No pressure and no obligation. Asking whether you have a claim commits you to nothing.
Knee injury claims: your questions answered
The questions we are asked most, answered plainly.
Can you claim compensation for a knee injury?
Usually, if someone else was at fault. You need to show that another party owed you a duty of care, failed to meet it, and that your knee injury resulted. That covers employers, drivers, councils, occupiers of shops and public spaces, and organisers of sport. A free assessment will tell you which applies to your accident and whether the claim is worth bringing.
How much compensation will I get for my knee injury?
Nobody can answer that honestly at the start, including us. The amount depends on the severity of the injury, how well you recover, the effect on your work and daily life, and your financial losses. Online calculators cannot value a claim because they cannot read your medical evidence. Once an independent specialist has assessed your knee, your solicitor will explain what your claim should include.
Can I claim for a knee injury at work?
Yes, where your employer failed to do something a reasonable employer would have done: assessing a risk, providing knee protection or matting, maintaining a floor or a ladder, or training people properly in lifting. It applies to damage built up over years of kneeling or climbing as much as to a single accident. Your employer is required to hold insurance for this, so the claim is met by an insurer, and being treated badly for bringing one is itself unlawful.
Can I claim for a torn meniscus or torn cartilage?
Yes, where an accident caused it or made an existing tear significantly worse. These injuries are worth getting advice on for two reasons. They often appear weeks after the accident rather than on the day, so people assume the two are unconnected. And where meniscus has to be removed rather than repaired, the knee carries a raised risk of arthritis later, which is something a claim can account for now rather than after it is too late.
The insurer has offered me a settlement. Should I accept it?
Not before someone has checked it, and checking costs you nothing. Early offers tend to arrive before the medical picture is clear, which matters more with knees than with most injuries, because cartilage damage and fractures in the joint carry a risk of arthritis and further surgery years later. Once a claim is settled, it is generally settled for good, even if the knee deteriorates afterwards. Ask us to look at the offer before you reply to it.
Can I claim if I already had a knee problem before the accident?
Often yes. Plenty of people who claim had some wear in the knee already, particularly after years of physical work. The question is what the accident added: whether it made an existing problem worse, or brought forward symptoms that would have arrived later anyway. Medical evidence separates the two. Be upfront about your history, because it strengthens your position rather than weakening it.
Can I still claim if the accident was partly my fault?
Often, yes. This is called contributory negligence. If you were partly responsible, compensation is usually reduced to reflect your share rather than refused altogether. People frequently assume they are more at fault than the law considers them to be, so it is worth having someone look at it before you rule yourself out.
How long do I have to make a knee injury claim?
Usually three years from the accident, or from when you first realised the injury was linked to it, which matters for damage that builds up over years at work. There are exceptions: for children the three years runs from their eighteenth birthday, and where an injured person lacks the mental capacity to bring a claim, the time limit generally does not run at all. Check your dates with us rather than assuming you are out of time.
Will my knee injury claim end up in court?
Most personal injury claims are settled by negotiation without a hearing. Court proceedings are generally a last resort, used where liability is denied or an insurer will not make a fair offer, and even then cases often settle before a hearing takes place. If yours did need a hearing, we would prepare you properly and be with you throughout.
Find out where you stand
You do not need proof, records or legal wording. Describe what happened in your own words, and a member of our team will call you back to talk it through. If a claim is not the right route, we will say so.
- Free, confidential and without obligation
- No Win No Fee available
- SRA-regulated solicitors
Check if you can make a claim
Takes less than 60 seconds
Find out whether you have a claim
Whether your accident happened last week or two years ago, a short conversation will tell you where you stand. It is free, there is no obligation, and if we do not think a claim is right for you, we will tell you so.
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