Our International Partner: France
If you’ve been injured in France or injured abroad while traveling, request a callback.
We pride ourselves on building strong working relationships globally with reputable firms that we can engage and collaborate with on behalf of our clients, thus increasing our success rate in cases abroad. We handle all aspects of a case from correspondence to logistics.
Jean-Pierre Bellecave
Associate Partner
Injured in France? BCV Lex
If you have been injured in France and wish to make a claim for compensation, we are experts in cross-border travel claims. With our French legal partners BCV Lex, we can immediately advise you on the French legal system, and we can obtain medical and police reports to support your case. Similarly if you have had an accident in Ireland and returned to France together with our partner firm BCV Lex we can help advise you on your claim to make matters easier.
With over twenty years’ experience, BCV Lex has represented more than 3,500 victims (or their family members) from thirty-five aviation crashes in recent years.
In conjunction with BCV Lex, we are fully conversant with international codes and regulations, and can represent clients to the highest degree.
French law governing Personal Injury
The Personal Injury system in France
The French legal system of personal injury compensation refers to a detailed scale of damages typology known as “Nomenclature DINTHILLAC”, which is applied for any kind of personal injury, by judges, courts, lawyers and insurers.
Time limits for making French compensation cases
The statute of limitation is ten years from the date of medical “consolidation” (i.e. stabilisation) of the victim’s medical condition (article 2226 civil code); in case of:
Road-traffic accidents, there is a specific regime which allows automatic compensation for any road accident injury caused by any motorised vehicle, but except for their drivers, and except if the accident occurs as a consequence of any “inexcusable fault” by the victims themselves;
Medical accidents for injuries caused by health professionals (doctors, dentists, midwives etc.) as well as any establishment, service or organization providing care, or in which any prevention or diagnosis are being performed are considered as responsible, but exclusively in case of misconduct; as to liability without any misconduct, it applies only in case of defective health products, nosocomial infections, medical research damages.
The statute of limitation is of three years in case of:
Liability for defective products – the three year period starts from the date on which the injured person became aware of the damage, of the defect and the identity of the producer; but and additionally, the action must be filed within the ten year period after the date the product was put on the market; liability for defective products, when alleged, shall prevail over any liability grounded on a thing’s performance;
Specific regimes exist, with provisions that differ from the aforementioned ones: i.e. liability for damages caused by asbestos.
Direct action against liability insurers
Direct action against insurers can be brought without having to sue the person who caused the damage.
French compensation system
In France, both direct victims (injured persons themselves) and indirect victims (next of kin of direct victims) are entitled to claim compensation.
Direct Victims (injured person):
- Pecuniary temporary damages: temporary damage and permanent pecuniary damage may be claimed.
- Non-pecuniary damages: both anterior to stabilization (temporary impairment, pain and suffering, temporary aesthetic damage) and posterior (permanent impairment, loss of amenity, permanent aesthetic damage, sexual damage, “setting up” damaging i.e. impossibility to marry/live in common-law marriage and/or have children, permanent exceptional loss, evolutionary non-pecuniary damage, damages related to evolving pathologies).
Indirect Victims (next of kin of direct victims)
- Indirect victims’ damages in case of death of the direct victim: both pecuniary damages (funeral expenses, loss of earnings of the kin, miscellaneous expenses of the kin), and non-pecuniary damages (supporting the direct victim from the injury till the death; loss of affection; post-traumatic damage).
- Indirect victims damages in case of survival of the direct victim: both pecuniary damages (miscellaneous expenses of the kin) and non-pecuniary damages (loss of affection, exceptional non-pecuniary losses) may be claimed.
