The Court of Appeal has dismissed the remaining part of a woman’s proceedings over an alleged raid and assault at her family home, ruling that her personal injury claim could not proceed without prior authorisation from the Injuries Resolution Board.
In a judgment delivered on 11 February 2025, Mr Justice Noonan, with whom Mr Justice Binchy and Ms Justice Pilkington agreed, allowed a cross-appeal by the defendants other than the woman’s husband. The court said the proceedings should be dismissed in their entirety because the remaining claim was bound to fail without the required authorisation.
The woman’s amended statement of claim, delivered on 31 October 2024, alleged that a receiver and masked men broke into her family home. She claimed she was assaulted by security personnel employed by the receiver, including being pulled by the arms and kicked in the shins, and suffered mental injury and trauma. The judgment records these as allegations; it does not make findings that the alleged events occurred.
The original pleading had referred vaguely to a “3am raid” and her husband’s imprisonment. The High Court had declined to dismiss that part of the claim, giving the woman the benefit of the doubt because it could not safely conclude that it was frivolous, vexatious or bound to fail. It directed her to amend the pleading to set out the issue properly. Her appeal against the High Court’s wider decision was struck out after an “unless” order, but the defendants pursued a cross-appeal concerning this remaining claim.
The defendants argued that the amended claim was, in substance, a claim for personal injuries and required authorisation under the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003, now administered by the Injuries Resolution Board. The Court of Appeal permitted the argument to be raised at this stage, noting that the claim had only been fully clarified in the amended pleading and that the issue was legal and required no further evidence.
The court said the statutory definition of personal injury includes impairment of a person’s physical or mental condition. It relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Clarke v O’Gorman, which held that the legislation applied to a claim involving emotional trauma. The judgment noted that the original proceedings had also included other claims for relief, but those had already been struck out by the High Court as an abuse of process. In those circumstances, the court concluded that the exception for proceedings combining personal injury damages with a bona fide claim for another cause of action did not assist.
The court held that the remaining claim was impermissible without Board authorisation and dismissed the proceedings in full. The judgment does not decide whether the alleged raid or assault occurred.