The High Court has ruled that dependants who appeal their compensation awards can proceed even though N.C.’s widow, K.W., accepted an award from the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation Tribunal. The court decided a preliminary issue in the appeal; it did not determine whether the appellants should receive more compensation or change the Tribunal’s assessment or division of damages.
N.C. died on 18 January 1994 from Hepatitis C and HIV contracted through contaminated blood products, the judgment states. His dependants made claims to the Tribunal. Following a hearing in November 2003, it assessed damages under several headings and apportioned sums among dependants. K.W. accepted the lump sum award in January 2004. Twelve dependants then sought to appeal, arguing that each had made an individual claim and could challenge the sum awarded to them.
The Tribunal’s position was that there had been a single award to a single claimant, K.W., whose acceptance prevented the other dependants from appealing. K.W., her daughter K.C. and another notice party, S.C., supported that position. The Minister for Health and Children and the deceased’s parents argued that the acceptance did not bar the other dependants’ appeals.
Justice O’Neill held that the appellants were “claimants” under the 1997 Act because they were eligible dependants who had completed claim forms. He found that the reference to Part IV of the Civil Liability Act 1961 in the compensation legislation concerned how damages were calculated; it did not import the separate rule limiting wrongful-death actions to one claim.
The judge said that many of the compensation claims were individual in nature. Allowing one dependant’s acceptance to block another’s appeal could cause significant injustice, particularly where dependants’ interests in the division of general damages differed. He concluded that, for these dependency claims, an appeal by one dependant makes another dependant’s acceptance ineffective in relation to the relevant awards.
The court therefore held that the appellants were entitled to appeal both the amount of general damages and how those damages were divided among the dependants. This was a ruling on their right to appeal, not a decision on the merits or the amount of any further award.