Recent High Court Award under New Personal Injury Guidelines
Mr Justice Michael Hanna in the High Court on Thursday the 13th of October gave an interesting insight into the assessment of damages in relation to a case where the plaintiff suffered a fractured wrist and clavicle as a result of being thrown from her bike when stopped at traffic lights after being hit by a van. Her helmet broke when she struck her head but she did not suffer any head injuries.
The judge noted hat she had been brought to the Mater Hospital and was discharged a few days later. She wore a sling for 3 months and subsequently had to undergo surgery to insert a plate into her clavicle.
She gave evidence that she continued to suffer with her injuries which she said had hindered her ability to work as a carer and had been left with some arthritic pain in her wrist.
The judge said the new injury guidelines were fairly clear. He said that he had approached the exercise of assessing damages rather differently to how he valued claims using the old Bok of Quantum. In this case, liability was not in dispute.
He awarded €40,000 damages for the Plaintiff’s wrist injury, which he described as being the primary injury and he then ‘uplifted’ this by €35,000 to take account of her clavicle injury, scarring and minor psychological effects. Together with agreed special damages this brought the award to a total of €87,400.
For any advice on personal injury or litigation matter please don’t hesitate to contact Conor Cleary or Brendan Dillon on 012960666.
