Injury Compensation News

A woman who was hit by a van while crossing a busy Dublin street has been awarded almost 178,000 Euros in personal injury compensation in the High Court.

Amy McKernan (36) from North Ewington, Oxfordshire, was crossing the road at the junction of Wicklow Street and Clarendon Street on May 7th 2002, when she was struck by a van driven by Yuk Fong from Dublin. The force of the collision knocked her onto the bonnet of the vehicle, before she landed on the road surface – sustaining facial and back injuries.

In her claim against Mr Fong and the owner of the van – Mr Yau Tsali Li – Amy claimed that the van was driven at excessive speed, as she had seen the van pulling away from the Chinese restaurant outside which it had been parked and felt she still had plenty of time to cross the road.

Yuk Fong and Yau Tsali Li denied the claims, and counter-claimed that Amy had contributed to her own injuries by failing to keep a proper lookout. However, as Amy was about to step onto the pavement when the accident happened, Mr. Justice John Quirke at the High Court determined that Amy had established negligence in the driving of the van, whereas the defendants had failed to show that Amy had in any way been responsible for the accident and her injuries.

A man whose life was shattered in a hit and run accident in 2005 has been awarded 2 million Euros compensation by the High Court in Dublin.
Paul Gogarty (35) from Kingscourt, County Cavan, was walking home from a night out with friends, when he was run over by a vehicle which failed to stop. Due to the accident, Paul – formerly a factory worker – sustained severe bilateral traumatic brain injury.
As the vehicle responsible for Paul’s injuries was never traced, a claim for road traffic accident compensation was brought against the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) through Paul’s brother, Oliver.
Mr. Justice Nicholas Kearns heard in the High Court how Paul’s injuries have left him requiring lifelong care and ongoing treatment for post-traumatic epilepsy. The consequences of the accident have also caused persistent cognitive and behavioural problems.
He also heard that an offer of compensation for 2 million Euros had been made by MIBI, which the family had agreed to accept. Approving the settlement, Mr. Justice Nicholas Kearns noted that an application will now be made to make Paul a ward of court.

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.

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.

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 Maria Verdida, a nurse aged 52 at the time of her death in October 2003, has received €575,000 following an road traffic accident involving a bus.
The case for wrongful death was taken by the husband of the deceased nurse, Resituto Verdida, who has since moved back to the Philippines, against Dublin Bus and the bus driver. The defendants admitted full liability for the accident and the only question to be decided was the amount of compensation.
The bus driver, Frank Turner of Crumlin, Dublin, was driving at a safe speed but was temporarily blinded by strong sunlight and failed to react in time when the light at a pedestrian crossing changed to amber.  Mr Turner admitted fault in the accident and apologised to the family of Mrs Verdida. He was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence, fined €500,  and banned from driving for four years.
The bus was not carrying any passengers – which would surely have resulted in claims for mental stress had they witnessed the very unfortunate accident.