This has been a busy week of court news reportage of personal injury claims and this week we bring you a number of interesting cases which were carried in the Irish Examiner.
€50,000 for post traumatic stress
Personal injury claims for psychological injury whilst not exactly commonplace are starting to feature in the courts more frequently.
This report concerns a now retired Garda who sufferred post traumatic stress disorder following an incident he was involved in eight years ago in Gort, County Galway. An unarmed member of the force, he had been summoned to a report of shots being fired in the area and had then been confronted by a man who subsequently fired at him.
The incident subsequently resulted in a siege and the Garda also told the Court that he had psychological issues as a result of the trauma including panic attacks.
€90,000 for fall on escalator
An elderly woman sued Irish Rail through her son for a fall she sustained on a Connolly Station escalator. Interestingly the case largely centred on Irish Rail’s responsibility to provide her with safe access to and from the train as the lifts had been out of order.
€20,0000 award for infant’s fractured leg
A mirror fell off a wall injuring an 13 month old infant’s leg and a claim was made against the Carlton Hotel in Tralee. As is normally the case with child injury claims, the action was brought through his mother (in her legal standing as ‘next friend’) and the compensation payout will be invested in trust until the injured party reaches the age of eighteen.
16 people due in court for bogus car crash claims
The Irish Insurance Federation estimates that €100m is lost to insurance fraud every year and ‘Operation Nascar’ was set up by the Gardaí to investigate an unusually high spate of allegedly arranged car crashes in the Cork area. This particular case is yet to be heard.
