Civil claims possible from
15 May 1987
Crown immunity removed
Before that date
War Pension
no fault, no time limit
Total deafness, JCG 18th ed
£119,890+
general damages only
Civil time limit
3 years
from date of knowledge
Written by
Azhar Ali
Personal Injury Solicitor at Claim Time Solicitors, Birmingham. Handling personal injury and child injury claims across England and Wales on a No Win No Fee basis.
This guide is reviewed against the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945, current UK case law, and SRA standards. For general information only.
Whether you can sue the Ministry of Defence for hearing damage turns on a single date. Until 15 May 1987 the MOD held Crown immunity and could not be sued by service personnel at all. That immunity was removed, but not retrospectively. Noise exposure before that date cannot found a civil claim. Exposure on or after it can. If your service spans the date, the claim covers the post-1987 portion. And if your service ended before 1987 entirely, the War Pension Scheme remains open to you with no time limit and no need to prove fault.
Hearing loss is one of the most common consequences of military service and one of the least discussed. It rarely announces itself. It arrives as a ringing that does not settle, as conversations in a busy room becoming work rather than habit, as the television going up a notch each year.
Most guidance on military hearing loss claims skips the question that actually determines whether you have a claim at all, which is when you served. This guide starts there, because getting it wrong wastes months, and because the answer for pre-1987 veterans is not that nothing can be done. It is that a different route applies.
The 1987 rule: can you sue the MOD at all?
Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 barred service personnel from suing the Crown for injury caused during service. The Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987 repealed it with effect from 15 May 1987. The repeal was deliberately not made retrospective, so noise exposure before that date remains outside the reach of a civil claim.
This is not a technicality that a good solicitor can argue around. It is a statutory bar, and it has been tested. A parliamentary petition asking for veterans who left before 1987 to be allowed to claim for hearing loss gathered more than 18,000 signatures. The government’s response confirmed there are no plans to remove Crown immunity for claims arising from service before 1987.
For hearing loss specifically, the bar bites harder than for most injuries. Noise damage accumulates across a career rather than arriving in a single incident, and a great many of the people now living with service-related hearing loss served during the 1960s, 70s and early 80s. The condition is real, the cause is service, and the civil route is closed.
Crown immunity has no effect on the War Pension Scheme. That scheme covers injury and illness caused by service before 6 April 2005, requires no proof that anyone was negligent, has no time limit, and recognises both noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus. If your service ended before 15 May 1987, this is your route, and it is still open however long ago you served.
If your service spans 1987
Many careers straddle the date. Someone who joined in 1982 and left in 1996 was exposed to damaging noise on both sides of it. The claim is not defeated, but it is confined to the damage attributable to service on or after 15 May 1987.
That makes apportionment the central issue. Noise-induced hearing loss is cumulative and does not carry a timestamp, so a medical expert is asked to divide the loss between the barred and claimable periods. The exercise draws on service records showing roles and postings, any audiograms taken during service, the noise characteristics of the equipment and environments involved, and the pattern of loss visible on current testing.
Where in-service audiograms exist, apportionment becomes considerably more reliable, because a test from the mid-1980s establishes what hearing was like at the boundary. Requesting your full service medical records early is therefore not administrative housekeeping. It is often the single most valuable step in the claim.
Three routes compared
Civil claim, Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, or War Pension Scheme. Your service dates determine which are available. More than one can apply, though awards are set off against each other so they do not simply stack.
| Civil claim v MOD | AFCS | War Pension Scheme | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service dates covered | On or after 15 May 1987 | On or after 6 April 2005 | Before 6 April 2005 |
| Prove fault? | Yes | No | No |
| Time limit | 3 years from date of knowledge | 7 years, late-onset exceptions | None |
| Claim while serving? | Yes | Yes | No, must have left |
| How value is set | Assessed individually, no ceiling | Fixed tariff | Percentage assessment, paid as a pension or lump sum |
| Affected by Crown immunity? | Yes, barred before 15 May 1987 | No | No |
Where both a no-fault award and civil damages are obtained for the same injury, the award is set off against the damages so that the same loss is not paid twice. That does not make pursuing both pointless, because a civil claim is assessed individually and is not capped by tariff. It does mean any comparison between routes should be made on the net position rather than by adding the figures together.
What causes hearing damage in service
- Weapons fire, particularly small arms on ranges and in confined spaces, where peak pressure levels are extreme even for brief exposures
- Artillery and naval gunfire, including for personnel in supporting roles rather than firing positions
- Explosive ordnance, demolitions and battle simulation
- Aircraft, flight decks, engine running and rotary operations
- Armoured vehicles and engineering plant, where noise is continuous rather than impulsive
- Communications equipment, where headset levels are raised to overcome ambient noise
- Acoustic trauma from a single event, such as an unexpected discharge or blast, which can cause immediate permanent damage
Impulse noise of the kind produced by weapons is more damaging than continuous noise at the same measured level, because the ear’s protective reflex cannot react quickly enough. This is why hearing protection matters most in precisely the situations where it is most likely to be removed for operational reasons.
The MOD's duty under the noise regulations
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 require employers to assess noise risk, reduce exposure at source where reasonably practicable, provide suitable hearing protection, ensure its use, and provide health surveillance where exposure is above the upper action values. The MOD is subject to these duties alongside its general obligations under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
A civil claim turns on whether those duties were discharged. Providing hearing protection is not by itself a defence if its use was never enforced, if it was unsuitable for the noise in question, or if the underlying risk assessment was inadequate or absent. Equally, the regulations contemplate that some military activity cannot be conducted at civilian noise levels, so the question is what was reasonably practicable in the circumstances rather than whether noise was eliminated.
The failures that commonly found these claims are consistent: no audiometric screening on entry or at intervals, protection issued but never fitted or checked, protection incompatible with communications equipment so that it was routinely removed, no briefing on cumulative risk, and continued exposure after a serviceperson reported symptoms.
How hearing loss is proved
Noise-induced hearing loss has a recognisable signature. It affects the higher frequencies first and characteristically produces a notch on the audiogram in the region of 4 kHz, with some recovery at higher frequencies still. That pattern distinguishes it from age-related hearing loss, which slopes gradually rather than notching.
The medical evidence therefore rests on audiometry, and an expert report addressing three questions: is the pattern consistent with noise exposure, how much of the loss is attributable to noise as opposed to ageing or other causes, and where a career spans 1987, how the noise-attributable portion divides across the boundary.
In assessing damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity the court treats the Judicial College Guidelines as a starting point, but also takes account of the functional impact of the loss, the presence and severity of tinnitus, the claimant’s age, and the duration of the disability. The measured decibel loss is important but not decisive. The practical implication for claimants is that evidence about how the loss actually affects daily life carries real weight, and should not be left to the audiogram alone.
What military hearing loss claims are worth
Civil claims are valued using the Judicial College Guidelines, 18th edition, published April 2026. The figures below are for pain, suffering and loss of amenity only. Financial losses are claimed in addition.
| Category | Indicative range |
|---|---|
| Total deafness with loss of speech | up to around £185,840 |
| Total deafness | £119,890 to £144,860 |
| Total loss of hearing in one ear | £41,370 to £60,160 |
| Moderate hearing loss, with or without tinnitus | £19,680 to £39,250 |
| Slight or occasional noise-induced loss | up to around £9,260 |
Indicative general damages from the JCG 18th edition, which applied an inflationary uplift of roughly 8.2 to 8.3 per cent over the previous edition. Every claim is assessed on its own facts. Special damages are additional.
Financial losses in a hearing loss claim commonly include hearing aids and their replacement over a lifetime, audiology and ENT appointments, assistive equipment, travel, and loss of earnings where the condition ended a career or forced a change of trade. In service, a hearing downgrade can restrict roles or lead to medical discharge, and the earnings consequences of that can substantially exceed the general damages figure.
Tinnitus claims
Tinnitus is compensable whether or not it appears alongside measurable hearing loss. It is assessed within the same Judicial College Guidelines category, and its severity is judged by its effect rather than by any measurement, because there is no test that quantifies it objectively.
Tinnitus is the perception of sound with no external source, typically ringing, hissing, buzzing or whistling. It frequently accompanies noise-induced hearing loss because the same damage to the cochlear hair cells produces both, and it is common for tinnitus to be the symptom that finally prompts someone to seek advice, years after the hearing loss itself became noticeable.
Because it cannot be measured, evidencing tinnitus depends on describing its impact consistently and in detail. What matters is how it affects sleep, concentration, mood and the ability to work in quiet or in noise. A contemporaneous record, such as a note to a GP, is worth far more than a later account, and a claimant who has kept even an informal diary of disturbed nights is in a considerably stronger position.
Severe tinnitus can be more disabling than the associated hearing loss, particularly where it disrupts sleep over long periods. Abbott v Ministry of Defence confirms that the court weighs tinnitus and functional impact alongside the audiogram rather than treating decibel loss as decisive, which matters for anyone whose measured loss is modest but whose tinnitus is not.
Time limits and date of knowledge
A civil claim carries a three-year limitation period, but for hearing loss it runs from your date of knowledge rather than from the exposure. That is when you first knew, or should reasonably have known, that your hearing loss was significant and attributable to service noise. For many veterans that is the date of an audiogram, decades after discharge.
Section 14 of the Limitation Act 1980 defines knowledge as requiring three elements together: that the injury is significant, that it is attributable to the act or omission complained of, and the identity of the defendant. Living with worsening hearing for years without connecting it to service does not start the clock. Being told by an audiologist that the pattern is noise-induced generally does.
Section 33 gives the court discretion to allow a claim outside the three-year period where it is equitable to do so, weighing the length and reasons for the delay, the effect on the evidence, and the conduct of both parties.
Section 33 gives the court discretion to allow a claim outside the three-year period where it is equitable to do so, weighing the length and reasons for the delay, the effect on the evidence, and the conduct of both parties.
| Route | Deadline | Runs from |
|---|---|---|
| Civil claim | 3 years | Date of knowledge, subject to s.33 discretion |
| AFCS | 7 years | Injury, or first seeking medical advice. Late onset: 3 years from awareness |
| War Pension Scheme | None | Claimable at any time after leaving service |
If you did not always wear protection
This stops a great many people from taking advice, and it should not. Where a claimant contributed to their own injury, the consequence under the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 is a percentage reduction in damages, not the loss of the claim.
In practice the question is rarely whether an individual occasionally removed protection. It is whether protection was provided at all, whether it was suitable for the noise, whether its use was actually enforced, and whether the risk was assessed and managed. Individual lapses within a system that was not properly enforced tend to attract modest reductions, because the system failure is the employer’s responsibility.
Our guide to claiming when the accident was partly your fault sets out how these reductions are calculated across all claim types.
What to do now
- Get an audiogram. Through your GP or an audiologist. This establishes the pattern and, importantly, fixes a date of knowledge.
- Request your service records and service medical records. In-service audiograms are the most valuable single document in an apportionment case.
- Write down your exposure history while you can: units, roles, ranges, equipment, deployments, and what protection was issued and when it was worn.
- Record the impact. Sleep, conversation, work, relationships. Under Abbott this carries real weight and it is usually the worst-evidenced part of a claim.
- Check your dates before assuming anything. Pre-1987 service does not mean no route. It means the War Pension Scheme rather than a civil claim.
Summary
Whether you can sue the MOD for hearing damage depends on when you served. Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 barred such claims entirely until the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987 removed the immunity on 15 May 1987. The repeal is not retrospective, so exposure before that date is outside the civil route. Where a career spans the date, the claim covers the post-1987 portion and apportionment becomes the central issue.
Two no-fault routes are unaffected by the bar. The Armed Forces Compensation Scheme covers service on or after 6 April 2005 with a seven-year deadline. The War Pension Scheme covers service before that date, has no time limit, and is the route for anyone whose service ended before 1987.
Civil claims are valued under the Judicial College Guidelines 18th edition, running from around £9,260 for slight noise-induced loss to £119,890 and above for total deafness, with financial losses claimed in addition. Abbott v Ministry of Defence [2026] confirms that functional impact, tinnitus, age and duration are weighed alongside the audiogram, and that measured decibel loss is not decisive.
Key takeaways
- 15 May 1987 is the date that decides your route. Civil claims cover exposure on or after it, not before.
- The bar is statutory and has been tested. A petition with over 18,000 signatures was answered with confirmation that it will not be changed.
- Pre-1987 service is not a dead end. The War Pension Scheme has no time limit and needs no proof of fault.
- Split careers are apportioned between barred and claimable periods. In-service audiograms are the most valuable evidence.
- The three-year civil clock runs from date of knowledge, often an audiogram decades after discharge, not from the exposure.
- Tinnitus is compensable on its own, and its severity is judged by impact rather than measurement.
- JCG 18th edition: slight loss up to £9,260, moderate £19,680 to £39,250, one ear £41,370 to £60,160, total deafness £119,890 to £144,860.
- Functional impact carries real weight after Abbott. Record how the loss affects sleep, work and conversation.
- Not always wearing protection reduces damages, it does not end the claim under the 1945 Act.
- Get an audiogram and request your service medical records. Both are foundational and both take time to obtain.
Sources & References
- Armed Forces Compensation Scheme — UK Government guidance on eligibility, claims, time limits and compensation under the AFCS.
- War Pension Scheme — GOV.UK guidance on claiming compensation for illness or injury caused or made worse by service before 6 April 2005.
- Limitation Act 1980, Section 11 — Sets the standard three-year limitation period for personal injury claims.
- Limitation Act 1980, Section 14 — Provides the statutory rules concerning the date of knowledge for limitation purposes.
- Judicial College Guidelines — Guidance used when assessing general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in personal injury claims.
- Ministry of Defence — Armed Forces Compensation Scheme — Official information about the AFCS and compensation available to serving and former members of the Armed Forces.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I claim for military hearing loss?
What is the 1987 rule?
Can I claim if I served both before and after 1987?
Can I claim if I left before 1987?
Not through a civil claim, but the War Pension Scheme remains open. It covers service before 6 April 2005, needs no proof of fault, has no time limit, and recognises both noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus. You must have left service to claim.
How much compensation can I get?
Under the JCG 18th edition: slight noise-induced loss up to around £9,260; moderate £19,680 to £39,250; total loss in one ear £41,370 to £60,160; total deafness £119,890 to £144,860. These are general damages only. Hearing aids, lost earnings and future care are claimed in addition. AFCS and War Pension awards are set by tariff or percentage assessment instead.
Can I claim for tinnitus without hearing loss?
Yes. Tinnitus is compensable in its own right and is assessed within the same Judicial College Guidelines category. Because it cannot be measured objectively, severity is judged by its effect on sleep, concentration and daily functioning, so consistent contemporaneous records of its impact are important.
Glossary of Key Terms
Disclaimer: The information on this page is for general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Compensation figures are indicative general damages from the Judicial College Guidelines 18th edition (April 2026) and every claim is assessed on its own facts. AFCS and War Pension rules and rates are subject to change; confirm current details on GOV.UK or with Veterans UK. Claim Time Solicitors is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA No. 444171) and is an accredited member of The Law Society. No Win No Fee refers to a Conditional Fee Agreement; the solicitor’s success fee is capped at 25% of compensation recovered. Terms apply.
