The High Court increased a compensation award from €115,000 to €125,000 after allowing an appeal by a woman identified in the judgment only as P.B. The appeal concerned the amount payable following the progression of her hepatitis C related liver disease to cirrhosis.
Mr Justice Bernard J. Barton delivered judgment on 20 October 2017. The appeal was brought under section 5(15) of the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal Acts 1997-2006 against a Tribunal decision dated 26 May 2017. The judge said the only issue was the amount of compensation: P.B. argued that the award was wholly insufficient, while the Minister for Health submitted that it was generous, if anything.
P.B. contracted hepatitis C from a contaminated anti-D unit administered in 1977. In 1998, the Tribunal made provisional awards of IR£115,000 for general compensation and IR£55,000 for pecuniary losses, with liberty to return if her condition deteriorated to cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. The later appeal concerned a provisional award of €115,000.
The judgment recounts evidence of fatigue, depression and anxiety, and the psychological impact of the later cirrhosis diagnosis. P.B. had avoided a liver biopsy despite persistently abnormal blood tests. A later fibroscan supported the test results and the likelihood that her disease had progressed to cirrhosis. Clinical psychologist Jo Campion described her as markedly changed from the woman assessed in the 1990s, with panic attacks and social withdrawal. P.B. later received antiviral treatment and tested PCR negative, but continued to experience severe panic attacks and chronic anxiety.
The Court explained that the appeal was a full rehearing, not a review of the Tribunal’s decision. Because the application was for a further provisional award, the assessment had to exclude compensation for the risk of future deterioration to decompensated cirrhosis. The judge said the original provisional award had likewise excluded the risk of cirrhosis or liver cancer, allowing P.B. to return for compensation when cirrhosis developed.
The Court considered the Tribunal’s award to be within the appropriate range for cirrhosis. It nevertheless found a significant element of past loss: the condition may have developed well before it was diagnosed, when biopsy had not been undertaken and fibroscanning was not yet available. Taking that and the irreversible, permanent nature of cirrhosis into account, the Court assessed fair compensation at €125,000.
The appeal was allowed and the Tribunal’s award varied by substituting €125,000. The other terms of the award were affirmed.