A judge has reduced an award of court action costs after a hearing which found that the successful plaintiff had wasted court time with unsubstantiated allegations.
Earlier this year, Madeline Wright made a successful medical negligence claim against the Health Service Executive (HSE) for a failure to act after she suffered a spinal injury in a motorbike accident in 2005. Although the claim for medical negligence against the HSE was successful, further claims made against her orthopaedic surgeon – Mr Keith Synott – the Misericordiae Hospital and Sligo General Hospital were found to be unsubstantiated, and the award of compensation was made solely against the HSE.
What is unusual about this case is that court action costs are usually awarded in full to the plaintiff after a successful resolution of their claim; however a High Court judge – Ms Justice Mary Irvine – awarded Madeline only 65% court action costs against the expenses she and her legal team had accrued on the grounds that only 20% of the evidence presented in court related to the HSE negligence for which Madeline was ultimately compensated.
Explaining the reason for the deduction, Ms Justice Mary Irvine said “I am satisfied that regardless of the fact that the plaintiff only succeeded on the last of what I consider to have been four separate legs of her claim that she must nonetheless be deemed to be the overall winner of proceedings in which the defendants denied any liability and in the course of which she duly established a right to compensation she would not otherwise have been able to recover”.
The judge added that the claims made by Madeline were of a complex variety, and that the duration of the court case was significantly extended because of the unsubstantiated allegations of negligence against Mr Keith Synott, the Misericordiae Hospital and Sligo General Hospital. Although the judge admitted to considering awarding only 20% of the court action costs, she said “[I] will do no more than reflect in a proportionate way the plaintiff’s failure to succeed on this issue when reducing the level of [court action] costs to which she is entitled”.