Special damages: loss of earnings, expenses and care, and how each is vouched

Every search for how much an injury is worth is about two different sums. General damages are for the injury: pain, suffering and the things you could not do. Special damages are the money the injury cost you: wages, bills, mileage, care. The first comes from the Personal Injuries Guidelines' brackets. The second comes from your own documents. This guide covers the second.

What special damages are

Special damages are the financial losses that flow from the injury and can be proved with a figure. The Guidelines cover general damages only; special damages are added to whatever bracket the injury falls in. The Board assesses them in the same Notice of Assessment, and the assessment guide describes how.

The Board's 2025 figures show the scale. The median award was €14,020 including special damages and €12,000 without them, so at the median about €2,000 of an award was money out of pocket. In larger claims the balance tips the other way: an award over the Guidelines' cap of in or about €550,000 for general damages is mostly special damages, usually future earnings and care. Those figures are on the figures page.

What counts

Six categories cover nearly every claim. The special damages worksheet uses the same six.

Loss of earnings. Net pay you did not receive because you could not work, week by week or payslip by payslip. Overtime and shift premiums you regularly earned count where the payslips show them. Self-employed earnings are shown by accounts and Revenue returns.

Medical expenses. GP visits, the emergency department charge, physiotherapy, prescriptions, scans, consultants, aids and equipment, and the fee for the medical report. The Board's own FAQ says the application fee and the reasonable cost of the treating doctor's report can be recovered in the award.

Travel to treatment. Mileage, parking, taxis and public transport to appointments.

Care provided by family. Hours a family member spent caring for you that you would otherwise have had to pay for.

Future treatment. Treatment a doctor has recommended that has not yet happened, such as surgery or a course of physiotherapy, and future loss of earnings where the medical evidence says you cannot go back to the same work.

Other out-of-pocket losses. Damaged clothing or glasses, plans that could not be refunded, paid help with housework or childcare. Vehicle damage is a separate matter: the Board's FAQ says it can be settled with the insurer without affecting the injury claim.

Vouching

Special damages are "vouched", which means each item is proved by a document. That is the whole discipline, and it is what the Board and a court look for.

The Board assesses on the documents, with no hearing. An item without a document is an item the Board cannot see. The Board's FAQ says records of expenses can be sent after the application is made, so an application need not wait for every receipt, but the receipts have to arrive before the assessment is made.

A court is stricter still. Section 14 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 requires a verifying affidavit swearing to the pleadings, including the special damages claimed, and sections 25 and 26 make false or misleading evidence an offence and a ground for dismissal. A claim for special damages should be exactly what was lost, no more.

Loss of earnings in detail

The figure is the net loss: what you would have earned, less what you did receive. Three things come off.

Sick pay. Statutory sick pay from the employer, and any contractual sick pay, reduce the loss for the days they covered.

Injury Benefit. For an injury at work or on the way to or from work, Injury Benefit is paid by the Department of Social Protection from the fourth day of incapacity for up to 26 weeks, subject to PRSI class, at €254 a week in 2026. It is not paid for days covered by statutory sick pay. Where a faculty is lost, Disablement Benefit may follow; after the 26 weeks, Illness Benefit. For an injury that was not at work, Illness Benefit applies from the start, after three waiting days. The Injury Benefit guide covers the rates and how to apply.

Recoverable benefits. Under the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2013 the respondent, in practice its insurer, must repay the Department for welfare paid because of the injury. The Notice of Assessment lists the recoverable benefits, and the Department's Recovery of Benefits and Assistance scheme explains the mechanism. The effect for you is that the benefits you received are not counted twice: the loss of earnings is assessed in full, the respondent pays the Department back the benefit part, and you receive the balance.

The worksheet shows Injury Benefit as the deduction a respondent will expect to raise, because that is what happens in practice. The net figure it produces is a worksheet line, not the Board's assessment of your loss.

Future loss

Future loss of earnings is the largest special damage in a serious claim and the hardest to prove. It needs medical evidence that the injury will keep you from your work, or from the same hours or the same grade, for a stated period or for good, and employer evidence of what that work paid. A court looks at the annual loss and the years it will run, and in a large claim takes actuarial evidence. The Board assesses vouched future loss only where the medical evidence supports it.

Future treatment is simpler: a written recommendation from the treating doctor, with a cost. Where surgery is a possibility rather than a plan, the medical report should say so, because an assessment made before the injury has reached medical finality may miss it. That is one reason the Board, and a solicitor, wait for the prognosis before the claim is valued.

Care given by family

When a partner, parent or adult child looked after you, drove you, washed you or did what you could not, that time has a value. A court can allow a reasonable sum for gratuitous care, meaning care given without charge, where the care was needed because of the injury and the hours are recorded. It is not valued as a wage; it is valued as reasonable care. A dated diary, kept at the time, is the evidence, with the medical report saying what help was needed.

Paid care, such as a home help or a childminder engaged because of the injury, is an ordinary expense vouched by invoices.

What special damages are not

Three things people search for are not special damages. Pain and the loss of a hobby are general damages, valued by the Guidelines' bracket. Property damage to a car or a phone is a separate claim, usually against the insurer directly. And a sum for inconvenience or distress is not a head of damage at all: the Guidelines say that upset, distress and disappointment, without a recognisable psychiatric injury, do not attract an award.

Where this leaves you

Special damages are the part of an award you can see coming, because they are built from your own payslips, receipts and diary. Gathering them early, and sending them to the Board as they arrive, is what makes them recoverable. The special damages worksheet lets you list each item under its category, mark what is vouched and what still needs a document, and print the result with the Board's own notes beside it. It produces subtotals, never a total claim value, because that is for the Board or a court to decide.