The High Court awarded Ann Hegarty €35,000 for pain, suffering and inconvenience after finding that a 2003 bus incident made a pre-existing neck condition painful. The court said future neck pain or difficulties were not attributable to the incident.
Mr Justice Herbert’s judgment, delivered on 11 November 2009, concerned an accident on 29 November 2003, as a long-distance bus entered Fermoy. A car crossed in front of the bus, which braked; the car struck the bus and later collided with a Garda car. The judge found that Ms Hegarty was pitched forward and back in her seat. He accepted that she was frightened and shaken, but rejected the pleaded claim that she had been thrown violently from her seat to the ground.
Ms Hegarty reported left-sided neck pain the evening of the incident and attended her GP two days later. The judge found she suffered a minor whiplash-type injury and a minor exacerbation of degenerative changes at C5/C6. Although the accident did not cause those changes, he found it had rendered a previously asymptomatic condition painful and limiting. He also found a direct connection between the incident and rib pain reported in January 2004.
The judgment distinguished those effects from later symptoms. The judge found that by November 2007, pain and restricted movement in Ms Hegarty’s shoulder and neck were due solely to natural worsening of the degenerative condition. By February 2009, the condition had stabilised; the judge accepted medical evidence that she had full neck movement and could continue working. The judge also accepted the defence evidence that episodes of low-back pain were unrelated to the incident.
The court rejected the claimed psychological injuries as consequences of the accident. The plaintiff’s psychiatrist had considered adjustment disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder possible, but acknowledged the long delay before such complaints were reported and the minor nature of the collision. The judge found that the psychological complaints, first reported in March 2009, were not caused by the incident. He considered that stress about neck and weight problems unrelated to the accident, along with worry about the litigation, probably caused some emotional and adjustment difficulties.
The judge also found that Ms Hegarty had seriously exaggerated her physical symptoms to a defence medical expert on two occasions. The award was for her pain, suffering and inconvenience to the date of judgment; the court expressly excluded future neck pain or difficulties from the damages attributable to the incident.