The High Court has dismissed an appeal by an uninfected partner who sought to bring a claim for loss of consortium under the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation Tribunal Acts. The court held that the legislation did not provide such a claim for the partner of an adult child infected indirectly by their mother.
The appeal concerned a decision by the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation Tribunal, which dismissed the woman’s application in November 2019. Her partner, P.A., had contracted Hepatitis C in utero or during delivery after his mother was infected through contaminated Anti-D. He was diagnosed in 2017 and received a provisional compensation award under the statutory provision for an infected child of an infected person.
The woman argued that P.A. could also have qualified under a separate provision for people infected through the use of Anti-D. She said the broader wording of that provision meant his choice to claim as an infected child should not determine whether she could seek compensation as his partner. Her application was made under the provision for spouses and partners claiming loss of consortium.
The Minister for Health argued that the relevant provisions limited loss-of-consortium claims to the spouses or partners of people directly infected in the categories specified by the legislation. The Minister also submitted that P.A. could not have claimed as a directly infected person because he contracted the virus indirectly from his mother.
The appeal was a de novo rehearing. Justice Bernard Barton found that the word “use” in the Anti-D provision was ambiguous, but concluded that, read in the context of the Act as a whole, it meant direct use on the person making the claim. P.A. therefore could not have elected to claim under that provision.
The court also found that the legislation expressly limited loss-of-consortium claims to partners and spouses of people in the specified direct-infection categories. It did not extend that right to the uninfected partner or spouse of an infected child. The judge said the common-law claim for loss of consortium was confined to legally married spouses, and that the statutory scheme had not expressly extended it to people in the woman’s position.
The court dismissed the appeal. It did not award compensation to the woman; the ruling determined that she was not entitled to bring the claim under the statutory scheme.