The High Court awarded Garda Niall McCormack €20,000 in general damages for a wrist fracture and cuts to his lips sustained during an arrest in October 2013. It also awarded €394.05 for medical expenses agreed by the parties.
Mr Justice Twomey said the injuries occurred when an intoxicated suspect fell on McCormack’s dominant right wrist during the struggle to make the arrest. An X-ray showed an undisplaced fracture of the ulnar styloid bone. The lip cuts healed shortly after they were cleaned at the Emergency Department.
McCormack was treated with a partial plaster cast, followed by a splint on his wrist and forearm. The judgment says the cast and splint were used for about six weeks. He attended one physiotherapy session and took nine weeks’ sick leave. He reported weakness in the wrist during the year after the incident. Later medical reports advised that he had fully recovered, with no long-term effects.
In setting compensation, the judge referred to principles from Court of Appeal and Supreme Court decisions, including that damages should be fair and proportionate and that modest injuries should receive modest awards. He said the Book of Quantum was not binding on the courts, and cited a Supreme Court award of €7,500 in a separate case as an example of moderate compensatory damages.
The €20,000 award covered the lip cuts and, primarily, the fracture to McCormack’s dominant wrist. The judgment does not describe any dispute over the agreed medical expenses. The source records the compensation assessment and the medical-expense award; it does not set out any further order.