The Supreme Court allowed an appeal by an anonymised claimant, Mr H., concerning compensation for injuries he suffered in a nursing home that was not covered by the Residential Institutions Redress Act 2002. The Court directed the Residential Institutions Review Committee to determine the appropriate compensation, including any amount for foreseeable injuries arising from abuse in a scheduled hospital.
Mr H. had been resident in the hospital. After what the Review Committee accepted was a misdiagnosis, he was transferred to the nursing home, where he was subject to a particularly harsh regime. The Committee accepted that the transfer amounted to abuse under the Act. The judgment also records that the Committee did not award compensation for injuries Mr H. suffered in the nursing home. The nursing home was not among the institutions covered by the legislation.
The High Court ruled in July 2014 that Mr H. was entitled to an award for those injuries. It quashed the Committee’s decision and sent the matter back for further consideration. The Court of Appeal allowed the Committee’s appeal in December 2015 and discharged the quashing order. It held that injuries had to be incurred while the claimant was resident in a scheduled institution, even if later injuries were foreseeably connected to abuse there.
The Supreme Court considered how the Act’s provisions should be read together. It said the legislation was remedial and should be interpreted generously, but only within a meaning fairly supported by its wording. Section 7 refers to injury while resident in an institution, while section 10 requires evidence of injury received as a consequence of abuse. The Court concluded that the legislation did not clearly exclude injuries suffered after a claimant had left a scheduled institution when those injuries were a foreseeable consequence of abuse suffered while resident there.
The Chief Justice’s judgment stated that the Review Committee had erred by excluding the nursing-home injuries from its award. The Court allowed Mr H.’s appeal and directed the Committee to calculate the appropriate compensation, including compensation for any foreseeable injury arising from abuse in the hospital and suffered in the nursing home. It did not specify the amount payable. The judgment also emphasized that the award scheme does not make findings of fault or negligence against an individual or institution.