The High Court awarded €735,177.70 to a child with severe cerebral palsy for her future accommodation needs, resolving the only outstanding damages issue in her action against the National Maternity Hospital.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice O’Neill on 27 May 2011, concerned Charlotte Barry, who was born in 2005 and suffered a severe hypoxic-ischaemic injury during labour and delivery. The hospital had admitted liability. The action against the second defendant, Peter Lenehan, had been struck out with no order. Other damages had been agreed and approved by the court; the accommodation award was the remaining issue.
The parties agreed that a suitable property in Sandymount would cost €875,000 and that adapting it would cost €283,000. They also agreed the adaptations would add €135,000 to the property’s value, the family’s existing home was worth €550,000, and the plaintiff’s life expectancy was 35 years.
The plaintiff sought the full €1,158,000 purchase and adaptation cost. Her submissions argued that a smaller award would leave her parents or the plaintiff to fund the shortfall from the existing home or other damages. The hospital argued that compensation should cover the additional accommodation expense, accounting for the existing home and the value added by the adaptations.
The judge held that damages should cover the additional cost of accommodation, while accounting for the capital value of the property and the accommodation the plaintiff received from her parents during childhood. He rejected deducting the full value of the family home. Instead, he assessed the plaintiff’s benefit from living there during minority at one-sixth of its value, then halved that figure to reflect that, absent her injuries, she would probably have obtained her own accommodation as an adult. The resulting credit was €45,833, or one-twelfth of the home’s agreed value.
For the adaptations, the judge treated €148,000—the agreed cost less the value added to the property—as a wasting expense. He treated the remaining €135,000 as an enduring capital asset and applied a 3% return and a multiplier of 20.3. That produced an adaptation award of €230,215. Adding the calculated property-cost award of €504,962.70, the court ordered total compensation of €735,177.70 for future accommodation.
The ruling determined that damages issue; the judgment does not state that it resolved any other outstanding matter.