Darts pro rejected £1million payout after judge ruled leg amputation was his choice

a disabled person dart Player unsuccessful in claim for compensation in excess of £1 million after judge determines he requested amputation of his leg for no good medical reason.

Aaron Haley, who competes professionally as Aaron ‘The Rattler’ Haley, suffered a serious injury to his foot in March 2019.

The incident occurred when he was hit by a forklift while working for Wakefield-based cold storage company Newcold Ltd.

Mr Haley’s former employer had initially agreed to pay compensation for the injuries. However, his potential damages payout increased from around £500,000 to over £1 million when he died. surgery His leg will be removed below the knee in 2024.

Newcold Ltd later challenged the inflated claim, arguing that the amputation was unnecessary because Mr Healy’s pain or disability did not require such a drastic measure.

The company produced secretly filmed footage showing Mr. Haley walking “normally” before the operation, and he himself admitted that he regularly played airsoft, a combat simulation game, in the weeks before his surgery.

Judge Darren Walsh has now ruled that Mr Healey cannot be compensated for the amputation because it was “unnecessary on clinical grounds” and it was his own choice to have his leg removed.

The judge said, despite being secretly filmed several times, it was only on the day that Mr Healy was to see a doctor in connection with his damages claim that he was seen using the crutches and even holding it in the wrong hand at times.

However, the question as to why he removed his leg is still a mystery, the court heard.

“I accept that the elephant in the room, of course, is that the claimant had to go through a process that was not necessary,” the judge said.

“However, the defendant has presented no positive case as to the claimant’s motivation. Accordingly, apart from the fact that it was not motivated by pain and act as claimed, I draw no conclusions about the claimant’s motivation.”

The decision means Mr Healey is not entitled to a payout of more than £1million for the amputations, but he is still entitled to compensation for his initial injuries, which according to court papers his lawyers have claimed should be worth around £500,000 after deducting his own share in the accident.

During a three-day hearing earlier this year, Wakefield County Court heard that Mr Healy suffered serious leg injuries after being hit by a forklift at work.

The accident resulted in a “significant deformity and torn calcaneus”, the judge said, and required skin grafts and a lengthy hospital stay.

Although the risk is low, the court heard that experts agreed that it was very unlikely that an injury such as Mr Healey’s could result in amputation.

The judge said, “It is the claimant’s case, in short, that as time went on, less risk emerged.”

“He claimed that the extent and frequency of the pain, which at times became ‘unbearable’, as well as the restriction of movement or loss of function and resulting restrictions in his social and working life, made amputation necessary.”

The judge said Mr Haley was due to have an amputation in March 2024, but just two weeks before that his former employer’s lawyers secretly revealed surveillance evidence of the shooting, casting doubt on the ongoing impact of his injury.

He requested that the footage be shown to the consultants treating Mr Haley and the dissection was delayed, but this was refused and it went ahead as planned on 13 March.

The case then went to court, where his former employers asked Judge Walsh to rule that, even though they had agreed to pay compensation for the initial injury, they should not be held liable for the dismemberment.

He claimed that the operation was not medically necessary and that Mr. Haley’s choice to proceed with it was voluntary as opposed to involuntary.

However, Mr Haley insisted he felt the amputation was necessary, noting footage showed him walking “normally”, as he had in good times when his symptoms were less pronounced.

In a witness statement, he said that he was “really struggling”, that it was affecting every aspect of his life and that the pain had become so permanent that he “really felt like I had no option but amputation”.

But delivering his verdict Judge Walsh said a video filmed just two months before the operation showed Mr Healy walking “casually and normally” on a visit to Leeds police station.

One, filmed in 2022, showed him playing crazy golf and “wandering freely”, while another showed him carrying crutches on his way to a medical appointment, but not using them.

“Further, except for one day, at no point was the claimant caught using crutches throughout the pre-amputation monitoring, which began in July 2022 and ended in October 2024,” he continued.

“That one day occurred on 21 November 2023, and the day the claimant traveled from Dewsbury to Manchester for a medicolegal examination.”

That day, she used the same crutch in a way that “could not have been expected of her”, holding it in her right hand when it would have been more logical to use her left hand to balance with her injured right leg.

The judge said Mr Haley also admitted he had been playing airsoft – a physical combat simulation game where players shoot pellets at each other using replica firearms – until his surgery, which experts said would be an “unusual” hobby for someone who would require amputation.

“In addition, the claimant engaged in a variety of leisure activities during the period between [the] Medical report in December 2021 and amputation in March 2024,” he said.

“Such activities included tenpin bowling, crazy golf, snooker, darts and airsoft. All of these activities required the claimant to be on his feet and… were all undertaken voluntarily for entertainment.

“In addition, the claimant admitted that he was involved in darts very regularly – up to five times per week and competitively – and airsoft on a weekly basis up to and within a fortnight after amputation in March 2024.

“In his witness statement on 21 June 2023, the Claimant confirmed that the total game time for airsoft was up to four hours, with each game lasting approximately 30 minutes before a rest period of approximately 15 minutes.

“The Claimant also admitted during cross-examination that players move quickly from one room to another, that they move quickly on the front of their feet, that they turn and spin, and that they have to do the same quickly.

“While the Claimant stated that, ‘Sometimes I can manage it. Sometimes I have to sit it out or even stop’, that may be true, given that he naturally lands on his feet when playing and, occasionally, has to change direction, I accept the joint expert’s opinion that playing airsoft was an ‘unusual hobby’ for someone considering amputation.

“The Claimant also admitted that, from approximately October 2019, he was capable of driving a non-adapted manual motor vehicle, which was claimed only for short distances, with the ability to use his right foot to stop in an emergency. There is no doubt that if the Claimant had any doubt about his ability to use his right foot in an emergency, he would not drive.

“I believe that none of these are appropriate for a person who is experiencing persistent ‘unbearable’ or long-term pain and altered function in their leg.

“Therefore, in the lead up to the amputation, the claimant’s evidence that most of the time he was ‘in too much pain to be able to do much’, and that ‘the days when I could work were few and far between’ are rejected.”

He said it was also an important factor that Mr Healey, not his doctors, was the first to mention amputation and that he had started requesting it during NHS appointments.

It was also “strange” that he had undergone the amputation procedure without exhausting all other treatment options and had even refused to use a hot water bottle to relieve his pain.

Finally, they acknowledged that Mr. Haley has not fully recovered and that he suffered some pain while abroad in May 2022 due to long walking distances and required him to use a mobility aid.

However, they found that Mr Healey’s condition had improved to the extent that he was “functioning effectively normally” in the months and weeks before the amputation.

He further said, “Therefore, the claimant’s act of amputation was intentional and was not involuntary resulting from the situation in which the defendant’s negligence left him.”

“Accordingly, I am satisfied that the effective cause of the amputation was not the accident but the claimant’s own conduct, which I regard as amounting to a supervening event.

“Put another way, given that I am satisfied that the Claimant had improved and was effectively functioning normally in the months and weeks preceding the amputation, his conduct in demanding the amputation is so unreasonable and/or of such forceful effect, that it eclipses the Defendant’s wrongdoing and breaks the chain of causation.”

Before his amputation, Mr Healy’s lawyers had estimated the value of his claim in court papers at around £700,000, but this would have been reduced by 20 per cent to reflect his contributory negligence to the accident.

Had he been allowed to claim compensation for the amputation, his total claim payout would have been over £1 million.