Seven Aer Lingus workers can pursue personal injury claims, the High Court ruled, finding that an earlier decision on general damages did not prevent them from doing so.
In a judgment delivered on 3 March 2008, Miss Justice Laffoy said the court’s task was to decide whether the claims were maintainable in light of an earlier ruling in the same proceedings. She concluded that the personal injury claimants were not precluded from prosecuting their claims by that decision.
The dispute arose after a 2003 judgment by Mr Justice Kearns rejected claims for general damages by five sample plaintiffs. Aer Lingus argued that the ruling also bound workers claiming psychological or psychiatric injuries. The plaintiffs said their personal injury claims had been kept separate and were not before the court at the 2003 hearing.
Laffoy found that the earlier ruling concerned the five sample cases and claims for general damages for mental distress. She said the hearing transcripts showed that plaintiffs’ counsel had expressly distinguished personal injury claims, which were not then before the court, and said medical evidence would be called later. The parties had not agreed that the earlier ruling would determine those injury claims.
The judgment concerned seven named personal injury claimants: Pat Foley, Pat Gleeson, Brian Herbert, Paul Mahon, Pat Molloy, William King and Brian Webberley. Herbert and Mahon were plaintiffs in separate Byrne proceedings; the other five were plaintiffs in the King proceedings. All seven also had claims in the Barber proceedings. The judgment records a consensus that, if the claims were found maintainable, they would be determined in the King proceedings, although the settlement agreement did not expressly say so.
The court also addressed separate pay claims brought by William King, Thomas Burke and Brian Webberley. They argued they should have been paid on the Senior Simulator Specialist scale after returning to Aer Lingus from its subsidiary TEAM. Laffoy found that the appropriate comparators were the Shift Controller Technical and Shift Supervisor Technical grades, corresponding to the claimants’ former pay scales. She did not make a definitive finding on whether a personal pay arrangement for Webberley had been honoured, but said it should be honoured for the period after his return.
The judgment did not assess the amount of any pay difference, decide the merits of the personal injury claims, or determine costs. The settlement left other matters for separate resolution.