The High Court awarded a construction engineer €84,688.52 in damages after finding that a 2009 road crash caused soft tissue injuries to his neck and back and made pre-existing spinal changes symptomatic. The court rejected his claim for €478,279 in future lost earnings and awarded €20,000 for loss of opportunity in the job market.
Mr Justice Barr delivered judgment on 1 March 2017 in an action where liability was not disputed. The plaintiff said persistent pain had left him unable to work since the crash, apart from a period on his family’s farm. The defendant accepted that he suffered a soft tissue injury but argued it had resolved within 18 to 24 months and that later symptoms were due to age-related degeneration.
The judge accepted medical evidence that the crash had activated degenerative changes that had previously caused no symptoms. He awarded €45,000 for pain and suffering to the date of judgment and €15,000 for future pain and suffering. He said the plaintiff could make a reasonably good recovery if he completed the recommended pain management programme.
The court did not accept that the plaintiff was unable to undertake any paid work. It found he was unfit for heavy physical work as a builder, but the doctors had not said he could not do light work or work as a mechanical engineer. The judge noted that he had not tried to find suitable alternative employment and rejected his claim that injuries had forced him to abandon a physical therapy practice.
The plaintiff’s past loss claim was based on assumed annual earnings of €30,000. The judge instead accepted the defendant accountant’s evidence that the plaintiff received €16,456 in salary from his company in 2009. The court excluded a company car’s notional tax value and a director’s loan from the earnings calculation. It also found that the recession and the financial state of the plaintiff’s company made significant building work after the completion of a house in January 2010 unlikely even if the crash had not occurred.
The court therefore made a €20,000 award for loss of opportunity, rather than the claimed past earnings. It rejected the future earnings claim, finding that the medical evidence did not establish that the plaintiff would never work again. The final award included €4,688.52 in special damages, bringing the total to €84,688.52.