The Supreme Court dismissed Bus Éireann’s appeal against a High Court award to Teresa Goodwin for injuries suffered when one of the company’s buses struck her car in 1999. It also affirmed the High Court order.
Bus Éireann argued that Ms Goodwin had knowingly exaggerated her symptoms and that her claim should be dismissed under section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004. It also challenged the damages award, ultimately focusing its appeal on future pain and suffering and future loss of earnings.
The High Court had found that the crash caused soft tissue injuries to Ms Goodwin’s neck and lower back, and a shoulder injury that later required surgery. It accepted that she continued to experience neck pain and some lower back pain, but did not accept that all of her current complaints about her left hip, leg and knee were probably caused by the accident. It made no separate award for future loss of earnings.
The Supreme Court said section 26 required Bus Éireann to establish that material evidence was false or misleading and that Ms Goodwin knew it was. The High Court judge had not made that finding. The appeal court said it could not replace the trial judge’s assessment of the witnesses’ credibility and found no error in her treatment of the medical evidence.
The company relied on surveillance footage and the opinions of two medical experts who questioned the genuineness of some symptoms. Neither expert, however, was prepared to say that Ms Goodwin had deliberately lied. The Supreme Court noted that the trial judge had watched the footage, considered the competing medical evidence and accepted that some symptoms were not explained by the injuries. She nevertheless found ongoing neck pain and stiffness and some accident-related lower back pain.
The High Court had awarded €60,000 for future pain and suffering. The Supreme Court held that the award was open to the trial judge on the evidence. It noted that no future loss-of-earnings award had been made, and dismissed the appeal, leaving the High Court order in place.