New laws may ‘add insult to injury for genuine victims’

NEW laws to tackle compo culture and exaggerated claims may be unfair to genuine victims, a senior legal expert has warned.

Professor William Binchy, lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin and member of the Human Rights Commission, said the shortening of the statute of limitations to two years and the requirement that plaintiffs issue a letter of claim within two months of injury were not always practical.

He said there were signs of a developing “culture of hostility” towards plaintiffs and there was a danger that sanctions for overvaluing a claim would intimidate victims into seeking less compensation than their suffering was worth.

Prof Binchy was speaking at a weekend conference hosted by the Trinity Law School on the implications of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board established earlier this year, and the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 which comes fully into effect next March.

He said while both legislative changes were “designed to bring down the cost of insurance, root out false claims, smooth the path of litigation, encourage settlement and generally make the lot of defendants happier than before, they also carried “the risk of injustice to vulnerable victims of wrongs.”

Prof Binchy said the reduction in the period of time in which a claim must be lodged to two years could present difficulties for victims of medical negligence which were often complex cases and could not be quickly prepared. He said the requirement that an injured person present the alleged wrongdoer a letter of claim within two months was “a very short period” as victims could still be recovering and might not yet have consulted a lawyer.