The Supreme Court extended the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland’s time to appeal a High Court award to Terence Brewer, but only on grounds concerning aggravated damages. The ruling did not decide whether those damages should stand; it allowed a limited appeal to proceed.
Mr Justice Geoghegan delivered the judgment on 31 July 2003. The application concerned a High Court judgment delivered on 19 April 2002, with the order perfected on 22 April. The High Court had awarded Brewer €86,392.64, including €10,000 in aggravated damages, for a claim involving psychiatric injury allegedly caused by learning of prolonged asbestos exposure and fearing he would develop a fatal disease.
The Commissioners said they had formed a genuine intention to appeal within the permitted time. But the court was not satisfied that the delay resulted from the kind of mistake that could justify extending time. The solicitor handling the case had assumed the order was not perfected, although the court said there was no valid explanation for that belief. The appeal application came months after the solicitor discovered the perfected order.
The court also rejected the Commissioners’ attempt to rely on the argument that damages could not be awarded for psychiatric injury arising from fear of disease. That public policy argument had succeeded in the separate case of Fletcher, but, in the court’s view, it had not been argued in Brewer’s High Court case. The trial transcript showed arguments about Brewer’s credibility and whether his fear was foreseeable, rather than the legal argument made in Fletcher.
The court nevertheless allowed time for an appeal confined to specified grounds in the draft notice of appeal relating to aggravated damages. It said the limited appeal was consistent with its treatment of another case, Swaine, where an appeal on aggravated damages had been allowed while the rest was dismissed. The Commissioners were not granted permission to pursue a wider appeal.
Brewer said in an affidavit that he had received €50,000 in May 2002 under a stay arrangement and had spent part of it, including on a family holiday and contributions to his daughters’ home purchases. He said he would be unable to repay the money if the appeal succeeded. The judge noted prejudice from the expenditure but said it was unnecessary to decide whether that would independently justify refusing the extension.