The High Court assessed general damages at €35,000 for injuries arising from a 2008 collision on Cappagh Road in Galway, finding that the plaintiff’s neck and back injuries were soft tissue injuries. It declined to award damages for her continuing physical symptoms and for the more extensive psychological effects she described, finding those consequences were not supported by clinical evidence or reasonably foreseeable from the collision.
In a judgment delivered on 17 January 2011, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the defendant’s car had emerged from a housing estate and struck the driver’s side of the plaintiff’s car. The plaintiff, then a student teacher and one month short of her 28th birthday, described the impact as severe and said she was shocked and distressed. She was wearing a seatbelt, did not lose consciousness and drove home afterward.
Her neck and back pain began in the days after the crash. Medical reports agreed by the parties described soft tissue injuries, with no neurological deficit and no need for scans or specialist investigation. A psychiatrist’s report recorded symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress and depressive symptoms, while noting improvement and mild residual symptoms. Neither side called medical witnesses.
The judge accepted that the collision caused soft tissue injuries and that they affected the plaintiff’s study, social life and some sedentary part-time work. He said the injuries would normally have been expected to clear up quickly. He found no medical evidence establishing that the collision caused her continuing subjective back symptoms, and said she could not recover damages for their longer-term effects.
On the psychological complaints, the judge said the shock at the time of the collision could be regarded as normal, but the more extreme symptoms described were not a foreseeable or reasonable consequence of an impact of this kind. He expressly said he was not finding that the plaintiff had fabricated or deliberately exaggerated her difficulties; he accepted that they were real to her, while concluding that the evidence did not support attributing them to the collision.
The court assessed €25,000 for past pain and suffering relating to the neck and back, €5,000 for psychological sequelae following the impact, and €5,000 for disruption to work and social life. It ordered judgment against the defendant for €35,000 in general damages, with special damages to be added as agreed, if any. The judgment does not state a special-damages amount.