The High Court found that the Health Service Executive’s failure to treat a motorcyclist’s spinal fractures after a 2005 crash caused additional pain and a worse long-term outcome. It awarded him €145,000 in general damages, including compensation for pain and suffering and the disruption to his working life.
In a judgment delivered on 9 November 2012, Mr Justice O’Neill said the HSE accepted that its doctors had negligently failed to identify fractures to the plaintiff’s T11 and T12 vertebrae on X-rays at Limerick Regional Hospital. They discharged him with advice to rest and take painkillers. The HSE disputed that its negligence caused his later spinal problems, arguing that these resulted from the natural progression of the original injury.
The court found that the front of the T11 vertebra had lost 30 per cent of its height by July 2005 and 50 per cent by March 2009. The judge accepted the plaintiff’s expert evidence that the further loss probably occurred while the fracture healed in the first three months after the crash. He found that a brace, rehabilitation advice and instructions to avoid forward bending and heavy work during that period would probably have prevented it.
The judge preferred that evidence over the HSE expert’s opinion that a brace and restrictions on bending would not have altered the fracture’s final position. He found that the plaintiff returned to manual work after about a week and that lifting and bending probably contributed to the additional loss of vertebral height.
The court concluded that the increased spinal angulation placed additional strain on structures around the spine and significantly worsened the plaintiff’s pain. Although he had made a reasonably good recovery initially, his pain became more severe by early 2009. The judge found that he had to leave work as a motor mechanic because the daily pain had become intolerable, and that the negligence significantly degraded his long-term outcome.
The judge did not find that pain had forced the plaintiff to leave a later job in a fruit and vegetable shop. He found that he mainly left to pursue further education and a career in retail. Nor was he satisfied that the change of career would cause future loss of earnings. The court did, however, award €50,000 for disruption to his vocational life.
The awards were €35,000 for additional pain and suffering to date, €60,000 for additional future pain and suffering, and €50,000 for vocational disruption. The judgment specified general damages of €145,000; it did not state a separate future earnings award.