Family of Polish fisherman awarded €400k

The family of a Polish fisherman lost at sea after the sinking of a trawler five years ago have been awarded €400,000.

The bodies of crewman Tomas Jagla, from Poland, and skipper Ger Bohan, from Kinsale, Co Cork, were never found following the sinking of the trawler, Honey Dew II, off Ram Head, Co Waterford, in the early hours of Jan 11, 2007, during a bad storm.

Aneta Jagla, of Etlins Wood, Kinsale, brought a case against the insurers for the late Mr Bowen, which was ruled on by Mr Justice Éamon de Valera at the High Court sitting in Cork yesterday.

Tom Creed, counsel for the plaintiff, said the defendants had offered a €400,000 settlement.

On Mr Creed’s recommendation, Mr Justice de Valera approved this offer.

Mr Creed said the bulk of the award related to financial dependency and only related to Ms Jagla and their two children. Mr Jagla is also survived by his parents, brother and half-brother.

Mr Creed said a decision was made to remain at sea despite bad weather and for the crew to “dodge” by staying out and going with the waves. However, a marine engineer consulted for the case said the weather on the occasion was too bad for this strategy.

Two crewmen got to a life-raft and survived the sinking. As for Mr Jagla, Mr Creed said yesterday: “He got out of the trawler before it went down but he was lost at sea.”

Mr Creed explained a technical issue in relation to the case. Previous maritime law set the maximum recoverable damages at less than €400,000 and the accident happened before a change of law allowed for a maximum of over €2m.

Mr Creed said the settlement in this case did not represent the full potential value of the loss of earnings to the deceased’s family but represented a reasonable compromise as it exceeded the old maximum which pertained in Jan 2007.

Mr Justice de Valera said lawyers for the plaintiff had done extremely well to get the settlement offer made by the defendant.

The crew members who survived were Victor Losev and Vladimir Kostvr, both from Lithuania. In Mr Losev’s statement to the inquest in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, he described how he thought the boat must have been hit by a freak wave, while his fellow crew member described how the two men survived in a life raft in the terrible force 10 conditions.