The High Court awarded W €110,000 for post-traumatic stress disorder after allowing his appeal from a 2013 decision of the Hepatitis C & HIV Compensation Tribunal. The court heard the matter as a rehearing and accepted fresh evidence that had not been before the Tribunal.
The Tribunal had awarded no damages for PTSD or nervous shock, finding that W had not established psychiatric injury beyond normal grief, distress and bereavement. It had awarded compensation for loss of society. On appeal, the High Court found on the balance of probabilities that W had suffered compensable PTSD following the death of his son, B.
The judgment recounts that B had haemophilia, contracted hepatitis C and HIV, and died on 3 November 1994. W described being urgently called to hospital, seeing his son transferred on a bed during an emergency, and then being brought in to find him dead. The judge said the experience was an immense shock. He also considered the earlier death of W’s four-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a road traffic accident, which had left W particularly vulnerable.
The judge accepted the PTSD diagnoses given by Dr O’Ceallaigh and Dr Cryan, supported in part by information from Mrs W. The Tribunal had not heard evidence from W or his wife. The court was satisfied that the diagnostic criteria were met and that the condition was attributable to the shock of the experience. It assessed the injury as moderate: significant, though not the most serious case. The judgment describes sleeplessness, irritability, reduced quality of life and effects on W’s ability to work.
The court assessed damages at €125,000, then deducted €15,000 because W had not undertaken therapy that the court found would have helped mitigate his loss. The suggestion of therapy came late, and the judge acknowledged that reluctance to seek counselling was understandable. The resulting award for PTSD was €110,000. The judgment does not state any further order concerning the earlier loss-of-society award.