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Rejected claims

Is Your Claim Too Small for a Lawyer to Take?

Being told a claim is too small is a statement about one firm's cost base, not about your injury. What Victorian law actually requires, and what moves the numbers.

General information only — this article is not legal advice.

10 min · Rejected claims · Published 12 Sep 2026

There is no minimum claim value in Victorian law. No statute sets a dollar amount below which a medical negligence claim cannot be brought. When a firm tells you your claim is too small, that is a commercial decision about its own cost base. It is not a finding that your care was reasonable.

The reason is timing. Records, an independent expert opinion and court filing fees all have to be paid for before anyone can say whether a claim is viable. A firm billing by the hour has to decide whether the likely recovery can carry that spending, and it decides while the answer is still unknown. A smaller claim carries much the same investigation cost as a larger one.

Victorian law does set one threshold, and it is not measured in money. Under Part VBA of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) you cannot recover damages for pain and suffering unless your injury is a significant injury, assessed as whole person impairment. That restriction does not touch medical expenses, care or lost income.

What you were told What it actually tells you
Your claim is too small The cost of investigating is judged too high against the likely recovery. Nothing has been decided about whether the care was reasonable
The costs would be disproportionate The same point, in the language courts use about legal costs
It would not be worth it for you A prediction about what would be left after disbursements, usually made before anyone knows what the disbursements are
You do not meet the threshold Possibly a reference to the significant injury threshold in Part VBA. Worth asking, because that threshold limits only damages for pain and suffering
We cannot fund the expert report A statement about who carries the disbursement risk, not about the strength of the evidence
An expert reviewed the care and thought it reasonable A conclusion about merit. This is the one answer on this list that is about your treatment

Only the last row is a view about your medical care. The rest are answers to a different question.

If you are trying to work out which of these you were given, your claim was rejected: what happens now sets out how to read the letter you were sent.

Is there a minimum amount you can claim for medical negligence in Victoria?

No. Victorian law sets no minimum dollar value for a medical negligence claim. Nothing in the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic), the Limitation of Actions Act 1958 (Vic) or the rules of the Supreme Court and County Court creates a floor below which a claim cannot be brought.

What does exist is a threshold on one head of damages, and it is measured in impairment rather than money. It is explained below.

Anyone who quotes you a minimum claim value as though it were law is describing their own commercial policy. It may well be an honest description of how that firm works. It is not a rule that binds you, and a different firm with a different cost base can reach a different answer on the same facts.

Why does the size of a claim decide whether a firm will take it?

Because almost all of the cost of a medical negligence claim is spent before anyone knows whether the claim is good.

The sequence is roughly the same regardless of how large the claim is. Your complete records are collected from every provider involved, which can mean several hospitals, a GP, specialists and a radiology provider. They are put in order and turned into a chronology. An independent specialist in the relevant field is then briefed to say whether the care met the standard. If it did not, a further opinion is often needed on whether that failure actually caused the harm, and further evidence again on what the harm has cost you.

A claim worth a modest amount needs much the same work as a large one. The records are no shorter. The expert reads the same file.

A firm operating a conditional costs agreement carries that work at its own risk. Under section 182 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law, the uplift it can charge for taking that risk is capped at 25 per cent of the legal costs, and the cap excludes disbursements. So the extra reward for carrying a risky file is limited, while the money spent on records and experts is real and is spent early.

Put those together and a firm billing by the hour has a straightforward commercial problem. It has no way to look at a smaller claim cheaply, so it declines to look at all. The same reasoning, set out from the firm's side rather than yours, is in why law firms decline medical negligence claims.

That is a statement about the firm. It is not a statement about you.

What does it actually cost to find out whether you have a claim?

The costs paid to third parties are called disbursements. They are separate from legal fees, and they are the part that has to be funded up front. Four of them do most of the work on the invoice.

  • Getting your records. A private provider can charge for copying, and for assessing and collating the file, up to caps set by the Health Records Regulations 2023 (Vic). A formal freedom of information request to a public hospital carries an application fee.
  • The first expert opinion. An independent specialist has to read the file and say whether the care met the standard.
  • Any further opinions. Whether the care fell short, and whether that shortfall caused your harm, are separate questions and often belong to different specialties.
  • The court filing fee, if a proceeding has to be commenced in the County Court or the Supreme Court.

The published amounts for each of these, and the dates they apply from, are set out in what it costs to investigate a medical negligence claim. They are kept in one place on purpose: the statutory fees and the court fees are indexed on 1 July each year, and a figure repeated across several pages is a figure that goes stale on some of them.

The expensive item is the one with no published amount at all. There is no fee schedule anywhere in Victoria for a privately briefed medical negligence expert, so anyone who quotes you a standard rate is describing a market rather than a regulated fee.

That is the real reason a small claim is hard to run on an hourly model. The bill for finding out is substantial, and it arrives before anyone can tell you whether it was worth paying.

Is there a legal threshold your injury has to meet?

There is one, and it is worth understanding precisely, because it is narrower than most people are told.

Part VBA of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) restricts damages for non-economic loss, which is the legal name for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. Section 28LE says you may not recover damages for non-economic loss unless you have suffered a significant injury. Section 28LF defines significant injury as impairment that meets the threshold level, assessed by an approved medical practitioner or determined by a Medical Panel.

As at 12 September 2026, under version 130 of the Act in force from 25 February 2026, section 28LB sets the threshold level at:

  • impairment of more than 5 per cent of the whole person for an injury other than a psychiatric or spinal injury;
  • impairment of 5 per cent or more for a spinal injury; and
  • impairment of 10 per cent or more for a psychiatric injury.

Section 28LF also deems three injuries significant without any assessment: loss of a foetus, psychiatric injury arising from the loss of a child before, during or immediately after birth, and loss of a breast.

Two things follow, and both matter to the question this page is about.

First, the threshold is expressed in impairment, not in dollars. It says nothing about how much a claim is worth.

Second, it restricts one head of damages only. Medical and treatment expenses, the cost of care, and past and future loss of earnings are not subject to it. An injury that does not reach the threshold can still support a claim for economic loss. You can read more about the different heads of loss in What compensation can you claim for medical negligence.

What changes the maths on a smaller claim?

The cost of investigating is not fixed. Several things move it, and they are worth knowing before you assume the answer.

  • Whether you already hold the records. Obtaining and organising a large hospital file is usually the single biggest piece of preliminary work. If you have already requested your records, a meaningful part of the cost is already behind you. If you have not, how to get your medical records in Victoria sets out how to ask and what it can cost.
  • How many providers were involved. One admission at one hospital is a much smaller file than care shared between a GP, two specialists and an emergency department over several years.
  • Whether liability is likely to be contested. Where a hospital has already made an open disclosure, or an incident review records what went wrong, the question an expert has to answer is narrower. Where the failure has to be reconstructed from the notes, it is wider and costs more.
  • Whether one expert opinion will do. A single question inside one specialty is one report. Breach, causation and the extent of your loss across different specialties can be three or more.
  • Whether your loss is documented. Economic loss proved by payslips, invoices and receipts is cheaper to establish than loss that depends on impairment assessment and projections.
  • Who does the organising work, and what that costs them. Reading, sorting and indexing a file is the part of the work that scales with the size of the file rather than the size of the claim. A firm that does it manually at hourly rates and a firm that does not will price the same file differently.

What does no win, no fee not cover?

Less than most people expect, and this is directly relevant to why smaller claims get declined.

The Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner is plain about it: no win, no fee does not mean there is nothing to pay if you lose. Its guidance makes three points.

  • Disbursements are separate. Court filing fees, expert reports and barrister fees may be payable whether you win or lose, depending on what your costs agreement says.
  • A losing party usually pays a share of the other side's costs. That exposure sits with you, not with your lawyer.
  • An uplift fee is capped. Where a firm charges more because it carried the risk, section 182 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law limits the uplift to 25 per cent of the legal costs, and disbursements are excluded from that calculation.

So when a firm says a claim is too small, part of what it is weighing is the disbursement risk it would be carrying on your behalf. Read the costs agreement you are offered and ask specifically who pays for the expert reports if the claim does not succeed.

Are some claims genuinely not worth pursuing?

Yes, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise.

A claim may not be worth running where an independent expert has reviewed the care and considers it met the standard. It may not be worth running where the care fell short but the harm would have happened anyway, which is a question of causation and is where a great many otherwise arguable claims fail. It may not be worth running where the loss is genuinely small, fully documented and no larger than the cost of proving it. And it may not be worth running where the limitation period has long expired and there is no realistic basis to extend it.

What this page cannot do is tell you which of those describes your situation. Nobody can, without reading your records. Any page, any firm or any tool that gives you an answer before the file has been read is guessing.

The honest position is narrower and more useful. Being told a claim is too small tells you what one firm's economics allow. It does not tell you what happened to you, and it does not close the question.

What can you do if you were told your claim is too small?

Four things, in order.

Ask which question was answered. Write to the firm and ask whether an independent medical expert reviewed the care, and whether the decision was about the merits or about cost. Many rejection letters do not say. The answer changes what a second look is worth.

Keep the letter. It tells the next firm how far the first assessment actually got, which avoids paying twice for the same work. Being upfront about an earlier rejection helps rather than hurts. What a review involves and what to bring to it is set out in getting a second opinion on a medical negligence claim.

Get your records. They are yours, you do not need a reason to ask, and having them is the single thing that most reduces the cost of a second assessment.

Watch the clock. A rejection does not pause anything. Time limits run regardless of what any firm has told you, and the period you spent waiting for a decision is not added back. This is the part people most often get wrong after being turned away, and it is set out in does a rejection affect your time limit and time limits for medical negligence claims.

Clever Legal was built around this problem. Our technology does the work of organising records and building the chronology, and our lawyers review the evidence and make every legal decision. Because that lowers what it costs to reach an informed view, we can afford to look at claims whose economics do not suit a firm billing by the hour.

That is not a promise to act. Every claim is assessed on its own facts and some are declined, for the same reasons set out above. What it means is that the cost of finding out is not, by itself, the thing that stops us looking. You can start a free assessment and be told plainly what the evidence supports.

Common questions

Is there a minimum claim amount for medical negligence in Victoria?

No. Victorian law sets no minimum dollar value for a medical negligence claim. Nothing in the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic), the Limitation of Actions Act 1958 (Vic) or the rules of the Supreme Court and County Court creates a floor below which a claim cannot be brought. What exists instead is a threshold on one head of damages, measured in impairment rather than money.

Does a lawyer saying your claim is too small mean you have no case?

No. It means that firm judged the cost of investigating too high against the likely recovery. That is an assessment of its own cost base, not a finding that your treatment met the standard. The two are often confused because both arrive as a letter saying no. What separates them is whether an independent medical expert actually reviewed the care.

What is the significant injury threshold under the Wrongs Act?

Part VBA of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) restricts damages for non-economic loss, meaning pain and suffering. As at 12 September 2026, section 28LB sets the threshold level at impairment of more than 5 per cent of the whole person for an injury other than a psychiatric or spinal injury, 5 per cent or more for a spinal injury, and 10 per cent or more for a psychiatric injury. Section 28LF deems loss of a foetus, psychiatric injury arising from the loss of a child around birth, and loss of a breast to be significant without an assessment.

Can you claim if your injury is below the significant injury threshold?

Possibly. The threshold in Part VBA restricts damages for non-economic loss only. Medical and treatment expenses, the cost of care and past and future loss of earnings are not subject to it. So an injury that does not reach the threshold can still support a claim for economic loss, though whether that claim is worth running depends on what it would cost to prove.

Does no win, no fee mean a small claim costs you nothing?

No. The Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner says plainly that no win, no fee does not mean there is nothing to pay if you lose. Disbursements such as court filing fees and expert reports may be payable either way, and a losing party usually pays a share of the other side's costs. Any uplift fee is capped at 25 per cent of the legal costs under section 182 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law, and disbursements are excluded from that cap.

What should you ask a firm that turns your claim down?

Ask whether an independent medical expert reviewed the care, and whether the decision was about the merits or about cost. Ask what records were obtained and whether they were complete. Keep the letter. Those three pieces of information tell a second firm how far the first assessment got, and a second look costs less when it does not have to repeat work already done.

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