Injury Compensation News

Megan Ledden, now aged 14 years, of Glasnevin, Dublin, has been awarded €20,000 damages in the Circuit Civil Court in a case against a minibus owner following an accident where she was struck in the head by a wing mirror.
The accident occurred on a pedestrian crossing on Old Finglas Road in March 2007. Ledden was knocked unconscious as she fell back and hit her head on the ground. Ledden suffered a laceration on the right side of her forehead and bruising on her right knee. The result was permanent faint scarring under the hairline on her forehead, although fortunately it is not visible.
Mr Justice Matthew Deery approved the settlement and also awarded legal costs.

New statistics from the Injuries Board Ireland show women accounted for 72 per cent of the 1,443 personal liability awards in 2009 that were settled for the amount recommended by the Injuries Board Ireland.

However, when presenting the compensation award statistics, there is no explanation whatsoever regarding the cases that were not settled through the Injuries Board Ireland process but went to the High Court, where the awards can be significantly higher or were settled by negotiation with an insurance company.

The true statistics do not in fact exist, since the vast majority of injury compensation claims that go to court are settled privately.   Presenting a subset of the overall statistics without qualifying explanations is somewhat misleading.

The data only covers awards that were proposed by the Injuries Board Ireland and then accepted by both parties – and therefore does not include certain categories of injury compensation (cases where the defendant does not admit full liability, medical negligence claims, complicated cases – perhaps involving contributory negligence, defamation cases, phycological injuries like PTSD,  etc).

What the published statistics do not reveal the reasons why women represent such as high percentage of the settlements made by the Injuries Board Ireland.

Are women more likely to accept the Injuries Board Ireland recommendation whereas men are more likely to want a higher compensation amount? It seems highly likely that this is in fact the case.

It should be remembered that the statistics only represent a small subset of the injury compensation claims in Ireland because they are only award recommendations by the Injuries Board Ireland that have been accepted by both parties.

The category of personal injury known as “slips, trips, and falls” accounted for two thirds of all public liability awards. But perhaps this seemingly very high percentage is because they are precisely the type of small, straightforward personal injury claim that the Injuries Board Ireland is able to handle efficiently. The comparatively fast processing times for these types of simple claim is one of key benefits of the Injuries Board Ireland.

Just over half of the incidents occurred in privately owned buildings such as pubs or cinemas and just under a quarter of the awards were made against public authorities. However, the statistics might perhaps simply mean that public authorities are just more likely to accept the recommendations of the Injuries Board Ireland, whereas private building owners are more likely to defend compensation claims. The only way of determining the true percentage of claims against public authorities is additional statistical information.

The Injuries Board Ireland statistics show that 57 per cent of compensation claims were for amounts of less than €20,000.  However, this is certainly a self-serving statistic aimed at reducing the injury award expectations of the general public. In fact, the Injuries Board Ireland seems keen to promote its role in reducing the costs of injury compensation claims, stating that it is “delivering €100m in savings each year”.  If the figure is great, it is great news for insurance companies and also beneficial to the general public, but comes at the cost of victims receiving lower amounts of compensation.

Ms Justice Mary Irvine has dismissed a personal injury claim by a student because he “deliberately misled” the court.  He was lucky that she just dismissed the claim and did not inflict additional punishment.  Alan Danagher, a student aged 22 from County Laois, was claiming against the owners of Mr O’s Nightclub in Templemore, County Tipperary, for assault on December 26th, 2005.

Mr. Danagher claimed that he was knocked to the ground by two third-party individuals and then assaulted while being forcefully removed from the premises by nightclub staff.

There was no doubt that he sustained some level of injuries when hitting his head on the ground and he was injured in a public place with witnesses. There appeared to be questions about contributory negligence and the level of injuries sustained.

There were a number of factors that indicate that Mr. Danagher was going to receive substantial compensation for his level of injuries:

• He attended his GP doctor 50 times, indicating extremely severe problems

• He attended physiotherapy 70 times, indicating a sustained injury problem

• His claim was very well prepared, including both physical and psychological injuries

• The impact on his lifestyle was documented, including being unable to play sports or participate in certain social activities and dropping out of Waterford Institute of Technology due to depression.

However, Mr. Danagher’s case was damaged by his own actions:

• He updated his Facebook page to show his continued sporting activities, including hurling, rugby, and football.

• He also updated his Facebook page to show social activities, as Ms Justice Irvine described as his “apparent enthusiasm for nightclubs, dancing and drinking”.

• He denied participation in a charity parachute jump six months after he sustained his injury, despite photographic evidence, which Ms Justice Irvine described as “an act of dishonesty done to advance his claim”.

Some Lessons

A personal injury case is helped if you seek medical attention whenever it is required and damaged by not receiving medical attention when you do actually need medical help.  But while the medical records of repeated medical treatments will certainly help build the case for the severity of an injury and therefore the amount of financial compensation, excessive visits for relatively minor injuries will not fool an experienced judge.  And there are no inexperienced judges.

Be well-prepared for court and ensure you have all your facts correct. Never under any circumstances try to mislead the court.

Taxi driver Gerard McWilliams of Tallaght, County Dublin has settled an injury claim against Eircom for a twisted ankle that was hurt on a manhole.

Mr McWilliams claimed he was injured when he twisted his ankle on the edge of an old P&T steel manhole cover outside his home.  Mr McWilliams said he was in immediate pain and was taken to Tallaght Hospital.  He claimed that he had ongoing pain and discomfort and following initial treatment, he was eventually fitted with a plaster cast. Mr McWilliams claimed ongoing pain.

The compensation claim against Eircom stated that they were negligent and in breach of duty of care towards McWilliams in relation to their ongoing maintenance, repair, upkeep, and supervision of the manhole cover.

Unlike most cases, this injury claim was not initially settled out of court and Eircom decided to contest the injury claim to the High Court.

Barney Quirke, counsel for Eircom, questioned Mr. McWIlliams about 13 or 14 previous personal injuries claims, mentioning incidents in 1987, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2001.  Mr McWilliams stated that he may have been involved in 10 or 11 personal injury claims in the past but could not remember the exact details.

The number of claims by McWilliams was defended by his own counsel as “accident-prone” while McWilliams emphasized that the accidents “were not my fault”.

The court was told that McWilliams had been described by a judge in a previous injury claim case as  “the luckiest or the unluckiest man” due to the number of injuries from accidents.

However, the number of past injury compensation claims has no direct influence on the validity of the current injury compensation claims, unless some intent at fraud is demonstrated. Mr McWilliams claim was professionally prepared with appropriate medical evidence and there was no proof that this particular claim was in any way incorrect.

The claim was settled out of court, like the vast majority of personal injury claims.

The Injuries Board Ireland figures for 2009 reveal that 25,919 new injury claims were made, an increase of 5% on 2008.  There were 8,645 claims settled in 2009 for the amount offered by Injuries Board Ireland.  The difference between the high volume of applications and and the comparatively small number of settlements is normal because only about 20% of claims are settled for the amount offered by the Injuries Board (the rest are settled before an offer is made, go directly to Court, or are rejected as too low).

The total value of the award offers that were accepted was over €200 million, averaging €23,163 per award.

Nearly three quarters of awards offers that were accepted were road traffic accident claims, with 11% were for injuries at work, and the rest were for accidents in public places (like pubs or shops).

The offers that were accepted for injuries at work tended to about 50% higher than road traffic accident claims.

Francesca De Cataldo, an Italian interior designer living in Killiney, County Dublin, has been awarded €12,240 in damages following a metal frying pan falling down a stairwell in the Avoca shop on Suffolk Street, Dubin in June 2005.

The only member of Avoca staff who was a witness had not seen the object falling. However, Circuit Court President Mr Justice Matthew Deery found Ms. De Cataldo’s testimony that she was hit by a frying pan credible.

Although there were no fractures or cuts, Ms De Cataldo testified that she suffered from headaches, stiffness in her neck and shoulders, light-headedness, feelings of nausea, vomiting, and sleeplessness.  The injuries and circumstances make it plausable that the victim has whiplash symptoms.