The High Court declared that the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) acted without authority when it declined to follow an injured worker’s written instruction to communicate through his solicitor and instead wrote directly to him, copying the solicitor.
The judicial review concerned how PIAB dealt with Declan O’Brien’s personal injury claim. Mr O’Brien alleged that an overhead line carrying meat carcasses collapsed at the factory where he worked in November 2001, striking his back. The judgment recounts his claims of continuing pain and reduced work output; it makes no finding on the accident or the underlying injury claim.
In August 2004, as the three-year limitation period approached, Mr O’Brien appointed solicitor Denis Boland to handle his claim before PIAB and any later court proceedings. His solicitor sent the Board the signed authority and raised concerns about obtaining a medical report and registering the claim in time. PIAB initially insisted on a medical report before registration and wrote directly to Mr O’Brien. The claim was registered on 22 October 2004 after the report was provided, so the court said it was no longer necessary to pursue an order compelling registration.
The remaining dispute was whether PIAB could insist on communicating directly with claimants who had appointed solicitors, even when it copied those solicitors on correspondence. The Board argued that its practice fell within its discretion under the legislation and that the Act gave claimants a right to legal advice, but not a right to require the Board to deal exclusively with their representatives. The Law Society appeared as amicus curiae and supported the challenge.
Mr Justice John MacMenamin held that the practice had no specific statutory basis and that PIAB had not shown it was necessary, expedient or incidental to its functions. The declaration states that, in declining to accept or act on Mr O’Brien’s authority and corresponding directly with him while copying his solicitors, PIAB acted in breach of section 7 of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003, “or without authority under any other provision of the Act”.
The court did not decide whether the Board’s conduct breached Mr O’Brien’s constitutional rights or the other issues in the agreed list. Mr O’Brien had also withdrawn the European Convention issues during the hearing, and he was not challenging the constitutionality of the Act itself. The judgment’s wider comments on legal representation in administrative processes were expressly obiter: they were not necessary to the declaration.