Claim nation: How personal injuries awards have changed

Annette O'Connor, who was awarded €20,000 on appeal for striking her knee on a restaurant's table leg in 2011.

Two personal injury cases, one from 2017, the second from this week, illustrate the difference in the level of awards for personal injury claims

How it started:

The case of Annette O’Connor in 2017 was one which gave hospitality businesses cold shivers.

Ms O’Connor, then 48, had attended a Mother’s Day weekend at the Mullingar Park Hotel six years previously in 2011.

In the restaurant, the claimant had been directed to a table setting at dinner, right over the leg of a table, which had been concealed by the table cloth. Her subsequent claim for negligence on the part of the hotel’s owners, which was heard first at Mullingar District Court, was that the setting constituted a “trap”, in that as she sat down her knee struck the table leg which had been obscured by the long table cloth.

The plaintiff claimed she had felt immediate pain and shock but finished her meal. She subsequently attended a doctor and her local hospital. She said the injury had affected her personal and professional lives.

Witnesses for the hotel had told the court that the table in question was one of a sort in use globally.

The initial award of €18,000 at District Court level was not only upheld on appeal to the High Court, but raised to €20,000 by Justice Mary Faherty.

In the aftermath of the case the Restaurants Association of Ireland described the hospitality industry as being “up in arms” over the scale of the award, which, were it delivered per the new personal injury guidelines, could potentially have been for as little as €500, ie where “a substantial recovery takes place within six months”.

“I think the judiciary is out of touch with what is happening in Irish society.” Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the RAI, said, describing the issue as an "ambulance culture/sue nation."

“People think it is easy to claim for trivial incidents,” Mr Cummins explained before asking, “Why are we seeing these claims awarded in court?” 

The case highlighted the perceived vulnerability of small businesses facing litigation of that sort, for whom it would be economically more viable to settle a case early rather than going to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board or facing a possible years-long, punitively expensive legal process.

“Legislators need to do something," Mr Cummins said at the time. “The situation is out of control.” 

How it’s going:

The case of Bridget Delaney in Waterford is perhaps the most high-profile incidence of contrast between how things were done prior to the issuance of the new personal injuries guidelines, and how they are now.

Ms Delaney claimed to have suffered a displaced fracture of the tip of her ankle while walking on a public footpath in Dungarvan in April 2019. After medical treatment and physiotherapy, she was given a walker boot to wear for four weeks.

She took her case to the PIAB in June 2019, claiming her injury had resulted from the negligence of Waterford City and County Council.

She claimed that the appropriate award for an injury of that type, per the Book of Quantum of precedent awards then relied upon by PIAB, would have been between €18,000 and €34,000. PIAB took just under two years before issuing its assessment, which said she was entitled to €3,000 in damages.

Per the new guidelines, a minor ankle injury, such as “minor or undisplaced fractures… where a substantial recovery is made within six months” would see a claimant entitled to between €500 and €3,000 in compensation.

Ms Delaney asked that PIAB re-assess her injury using the Book of Quantum given her injury predated the new guidelines, but PIAB declined. Ms Delaney rejected the assessment of €3,000 as insufficient as she had to pay her legal fees out of the award.

As of this month she has sought a judicial review (a court ruling on the lawfulness of decisions or actions taken by agencies of the State, though not on their appropriateness) in the High Court in an attempt to overturn PIAB’s assessment, which she said had been delayed in order to be delivered under the Judicial Council’s guidance, something she alleged amounts to an error in law.

Ms Delaney is also seeking a quashing of the Judicial Council’s decision in March to adopt the new awards guidelines.

The bar for obtaining a judicial review is quite low. Proving your case is generally more difficult.

Should Ms Delaney’s case be successful, the entire personal injuries situation would presumably be back to square one.