Injury Compensation News

Gardai are currently being trained to recognize drivers that are possibly under the influence of drugs while driving. The Medical Bureau of Road Safety is training gardai drug-drive recognition techniques so that the officers will be about to “form an opinion” that drivers are under the influence of drugs if they have tested negatively for alcohol. Drivers that fail the impairment tests can be arrested and brought to the local garda station for blood or urine tests. Gardai now have authority to perform roadside drug testing under the provisions of the road Safety Act 2010. The blood or urine test will be performed by a qualified medical professional and the tested in a certified laboratory. Positive test results will be used to obtain a conviction in court. Refusal to submit to testing by the Gardai can result in fines of up to €5,000 or six months in prison.

Drug driving has received much less attention than drunk driving in Ireland, despite the fact that Road Safety Authority statistics show that one in five passengers have been in a car driven by a person under the influence of drugs. The new procedures can be expected to dramatically increase the number of drug driving convictions from the current level of 700 convictions per year.

If you have been in a road traffic accident and suspect that the other driver is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, you should inform the gardai immediately. The new procedures make it considerably more likely that the gardai will detect drug driving. Regardless of the circumstances of a road traffic accident, drivers is under the influence of drugs or alcohol are not only likely to be held fully responsible to the accident, and they are also going to be charged with drunk or drug driving and possibly dangerous driving.

Slovakian national, Milan Rybansky (34), who was knocked down by a car in Newtonabbey, Belfast, in December 2004, has been awarded £1,250,000 in personal injury compensation at Belfast High Court.
Milan, who was a history teacher in his native Bratislava, had only arrived in Ireland six weeks previously to take up a position as a journalist in Belfast. His accident has left him unable to walk or talk and he is now confined to a wheelchair, requiring 24 hour care.
His parents, who have been forced to give up work and sell their home in order to look after him, brought the court action on Milan´s behalf against the insurers of the car driver, who initially disputed the case on the basis that Milan had been using his mobile phone at the time to send text messages.
An agreement was eventually reached on shared liability for Milan´s injuries, as it was not disputed that the car driver should have seen Milan, that the injuries Milan sustained in the accident were life-changing and that ongoing care cost will be significant.
Milan has now returned to Bratislava, where the cost of his care will be cheaper. The scale of the compensation has now been approved by the High Court after checks were carried out on how the money from the settlement would be managed in Slovakia.

In the High Court, Mr Justice John Quirke claimed that he was unhappy with the system of compensation settlements when awarding more than 5 million Euros to Caroline Bogue of Belturbet, County Cavan, following an agreement between the claimant and the joint defendants – her cousin Ciaran Bogue and the Motor Insurance Board of Ireland (MIBI).

Stating that the money would be gone within 10 years, he criticised the lack of staged payments for awards of personal injury compensation and commented that the value of the settlement represented just 60% of what the claim was worth. His comments follow the case of Caroline, who suffered severe brain damage when an uninsured car, driven by the defendants brother, crashed into a tree just outside of her home town of Belturbet in May 2003. Despite wearing a seatbelt, Caroline – who was aged just 17 at the time of the accident – was admitted to Cavan Hospital where a CT scan of her brain showed she had suffered major haemorrhaging.
Now 24, Caroline needs assistance for daily living and feeding herself due to the consequences of her accident. She also experiences difficulty sleeping, has poor short-term memory and slow speech. Caroline will need permanent care throughout the rest of her life, and Mr Justice John Quirke is concerned that the settlement is insufficient for her lifetime and that she will become reliant on the State.

As it was alleged by the defence that Caroline knew that the car in which she was travelling was uninsured, Mr Justice John Quirke accepted that there was a risk that the claimant might be awarded less if the case went to a full hearing, and was guided by Caroline´s counsel. However, he commented that he was unhappy that he had to approve “a settlement so utterly speculative and imprecise from Caroline’s point of view”. A new system, which is due to be introduced in about 18 months time, will provide for continual payments over the period of the victim’s life.

Caroline Bogue of Belturbet, County Cavan, has obtained a settlement of over €5 million in a High Court settlement after an uninsured car in which she was travelling as a passenger crashed into a tree, resulting in severe injuries. Caroline Bogue suffered brain damage and will require assistance for the rest of her life.
The accident occured on May 1st, 2003, when Caroline Bogue was 17 years old.
The case was taken against the car driver Declan Brogue, the car ower Ciaran Bogue, and the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland. Liability was denied in the case on the grounds that Caroline Bogue was aware that car was not insured and was allegedly taken without the permission of the owner. The settlement was made without admitting liability.
Mr Justice John Quirke said that the case highlighted the need for a new system of staged payments in personal injuries cases.

Mr Justice John Quirke has ruled against a woman claiming €410,000 damages for loss of earnings arising from a whiplash injury claim, finding that it was “highly probably” that she gave misleading evidence regarding her injuries and capacity to work.  Mary Farrell of Finglas South, County Dublin was involved in a car accident with a bus belonging to Dublin Bus on June 14th 2004 at the junction of North Circular Road and Dorset Street.

Dublin Bus provided the court with videos of Ms. Farrell mowing the grass and emptying the grass box over a wall, repeatedly raising her arm in the process despite her injury the nature of her whiplash claims.

Dublin Bus also presented evidence of a comfortable lifestyle, including expensive cars and foreign holidays, that was inconsistent with claims of loss of earnings and future loss of earnings.

Dublin Bus asked Mr Justice Quirke to dismiss the claim under the provision of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 that allows for the dismissal of claims where a judge considers a claimant gave material misleading evidence to increase their compensation claim or in support of a false claim.

Mr. Justice Quirke cited multiple reasons for dismissing the case.

The simply lesson from this case is that while you can work with your solicitor to ensure that you present your case for compensation in the strongest possible manner, you should never exaggerate or even make misleading statements.

Sean Geraghty of Oldcastle, County Meath, has settled his High Court case for his arm that was severed during a collision with a truck.

It was claimed in court that Gereghty’s arm was severed by a lorry driven by Edward Gavin on the Ballyjamesduff to Oldcastle Road in County Meath. Geraghty’s right arm was severed five inches below the elbow while adjusting his wing mirror. The incident happened on the night of July 15, 2003. The passenger in Geraghty’s car called for an ambulance and the gardai and Geraghty was taken to hospital and sedated. The severed part of the arm was never recovered and it was speculated in court that foxes or rats may have taken it.

Edward Gavin denied all knowlege of the incident; which is entirely possible given the circumstances of the accident. However, blood was found on the truck at the likely point of impact:

Geraghty has not been able to resume his former job as a driver or resume sports such as swimming and pitch and putt golf.

Geraghty sued for negligence and breach of duty of care following the alleged incident.

The case was settled out of court.

The Road Traffic Bill 2009 that arrives in Seanad Eireann this week after passing unopposed in the Dáil last week will improve road safety in Ireland by reducing road traffic accident deaths while also having an important impact on road traffic accident injury compensation claims. The Road Safety Authority has ample statistics on drunk driving that show that alcohol contributes to one third of all fatal traffic accidents in Ireland.  A driver at the current limit of 80 mg of alcohol per 100 mls of blood is six times more likely to have an accident than a sober driver.

Minister Dempsey has pursued his campaign to save lives despite what has been described as ‘huge pressure”.  The improved safety measures were, somewhat incredibly, strongly opposed by a group of rural TDs who pointed out that rural pubs are often the centre of social life in rural areas where there is no public transport.  The Vintners’ Federation of Ireland opposed the new measures and pointed out that speeding was the biggest single cause of road deaths in Ireland.
The blood  alcohol limit for learner and professional drivers, such as taxi drivers, has been reduced to 20 mg of alcohol per 100 mls of blood. The best new feature of the new law is that drivers will now be tested for alcohol in traffic accidents when anyone has been injured.

New Rules will Impact Injury Compensation Process
The circumstances of road traffic accident injury claims will now often be somewhat clearer because the gardai will test drivers for alcohol.  Regardless of the circumstances of an accident, a driver found to have consumed alcohol will very likely be held negligent. Drivers under the influence of alcohol are never in full control of their vehicles and even their statements about the circumstances of an accident cannot be fully relied upon.  Even the victim of a rear end car accident that is found to have consumed alcohol will be guilty of contributory negligence.
If you are ever involved in a road traffic accident, do not hesitate to inform any gardai present of potential injuries so that they will conduct alcohol tests on all parties in the accident.  Your solicitor will use evidence of alcohol consumption while negotiating any injury compensation settlement.

More improvements are still required:

• There may be a temporary shortage of  roadside breathalysers as the new measures are rolled out and some drunk drivers may avoid testing because the new bill states that the mandatory testing must be done within one hour.
• The lack of a driving ban for drivers caught with between 50 mg and 100 mg seriously undermines the new measures.
• There is still no mandatory requirement for alcohol tests where someone has not been injured.  Such a requirement would further help discourage drink driving.
• There is still no drug driving testing measures, despite the fact that workplace drug testing is now a standard procedure for many occupations and has been in place for decades in the United States.

The family of Bridget O’Reilly of Ballybeg, Waterford, has been awarded €506,000 in damages at the High Court following her death while a passenger in a car accident with a drunk driver. Mrs O’Reilly was aged 42 when she was killed, leaving behind a husband and nine children, the youngest of which was only 3 years old.

The case was taken by Mrs O’Reilly’s husband, Edward O’Reilly, against the drunken driver of the car, Frank Prendergast of Tallaght, County Dublin, and the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland. The car crash happened at Powerstown, County Carlow in July 2002 and Mrs O’Reilly died a few weeks later in hospital.

Mrs O’Reilly’s sister, who has her own large family, has been caring for the children left behind by the tragedy.

It should be noted that Irish law is rather lenient on drunk drivers.  In this particular case, the court heard that the drunk driver was travelling at speed when he lost control and crossed over to the wrong side of the road before crashing head-on into an another car. In some legal jurisdictions, such as under the California Vehicle Code, causing bodily injury to another person  while drunk driving is a specific criminal offense. Such road traffic accidents are only accidents in the sense that there are not planned, but they are not accidents in the sense that they are unforeseen. Anyone who drinks alcohol and then decides to drive a motor vehicle is clearly putting other people at risk and accidents are predictable.

Publicans Concepta and Seamus Kelly have defended themselves in the High Court last week in a lawsuit taken by the estate of a man killed in a car crash after consuming excessive alcohol in their pub.  The case was taken by the estate of John Connolly who caused a fatal car accident when driving three times over the legal limit for driving.
The car accident happened in the late afternoon after Mr Connolly had been drinking since 11.30 am in the Diamond Bar in Tullaghan, Leitrim.  Mr Connolly’s car collided with a car carrying a mother, Mary Flanagan, and daughter, Anne McSorley, resulting in injuries to the mother and the death of the daughter.  Mrs Flanagan has already settled an injury compensation case for the car crash for €275,000.
The current contributory negligence case in the High Court is between the estate of Mr Connolly and the owners of the pub that served him alcohol, Concepta and Seamus Kelly, who have defended themselves against allegations that they acted negligently and in breach of their duty of care in serving excessive alcohol to Mr. Connolly.  Perhaps crucially, it was alleged that they knew or ought to have known that he would drive on a public road.
Concepta Kelly defended herself in court saying “It is up to the individual themselves to know their own body. There are people who can drink and drive with three or four pints and people who cannot drive with one” Mr Justice Kevin Feeney has adjourned the case for one month.

Question: What sort of person tries to mislead a judge in court?

Answer: The type of person that is stupid enough to update a social networking site with evidence that contradicts their testimony.

Eric Sedie of Corte Madera, California, had his $2.5m personal injury lawsuit to dramatically reduced to $297,624.66 by US Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte due “inconsistencies.” There was no doubt that Eric Sedie had indeed sustained real injuries in 2006 during a collision with a United States Postal Service truck. What was disputed was the impact of the injuries, which Sedie claimed made his life “hell on earth.”
Judge Laporte found that “testimony revealed a pattern of exaggerations and inconsistencies” and in particular identified a MySpace entry “in which he described painting as a frustrating activity when his arm hairs would get caught in paint” – despite claiming he was unable to paint. Sedie was in fact lucky that Judge Laporte did not throw out the entire case.

The wrong lesson to take from this is that you need to avoid activities that will leave photographic or other evidence that you are lying in court, such as updating your MySpace or Facebook account. A cynical person who is just interested in gaining the maximum compensation might simply abstain from various activities until the claim has been settled (which can be fairly fast now, due to the benefits of the Injuries Board Ireland). No activity means no evidence of activity. This is particularly true in whiplash injury claims, where whiplash symptoms are often difficult to prove so the case often depends on evidence about restricted work and social activities.

The correct lesson is that honesty is best policy. Not because you might get caught and get no injury compensation. In the unlikely event that a personal injury claim actually goes to court, lies and inconsistencies will be probably spotted by the judge. The reason for honesty is that dishonesty is simply morally wrong.

MySpace and other social media sites such as Facebook will continue to be used by defence lawyers in personal injury claims.