The High Court assessed compensation of €185,000 for pain and suffering after finding that a 2008 dog attack exacerbated a Garda’s pre-existing back condition and caused a disc prolapse. The court also ordered payment of €17,505.44 in agreed special damages and an additional sum for loss of earnings, which the parties had agreed was to be advised to the court. The judgment does not state that earnings figure.
Mr Justice Bernard J. Barton delivered the judgment on 8 February 2016 in proceedings brought under the Garda Síochána (Compensation) Acts. The applicant, John Leahy, was serving with the plainclothes anti-drugs unit in Galway when he was attacked by two pit-bull terriers while making an arrest during a house search on 26 June 2008. The judgment describes severe bite injuries to both legs, permanent scarring and a muscle bulge in his left calf. He also developed post-traumatic stress symptoms and later required left hip surgery.
The central dispute was whether the attack worsened the applicant’s longstanding back condition. The respondent argued that the deterioration leading to surgery in 2009 was more likely due to progression of pre-existing spinal degeneration, pointing to the absence of recorded back complaints in GP notes in the months after the attack. The applicant’s medical evidence included a November 2008 report recording that he had been doing well before the attack and was then experiencing considerable back pain.
The judge accepted the applicant’s evidence and the reports of medical witnesses, and found on the balance of probabilities that the attack aggravated his intermittently symptomatic back condition and caused an L4/L5 disc prolapse. The court held that compensation for the back was limited to the aggravation and its consequences, including the prolapse and surgery. It also found that future back treatment was likely, with a palpable risk of manipulation or further surgery.
The court accepted that the applicant had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, from which he had essentially recovered apart from continuing fear of strange dogs and reluctance to enter confrontational situations. It accepted that the left hip injury was attributable to the attack and that a hip replacement was probable within 10 to 20 years. The bite wounds had healed, but visible scarring was permanent. The applicant accepted that responsibility for his right shoulder was limited to a worsening of symptoms between the attack and surgery; the respondent was not liable for the underlying condition or the surgery itself.
The judgment assessed €120,000 for pain and suffering to date and €65,000 for future pain and suffering. It added the agreed special damages and loss of earnings, and stated that the court would so order. The award therefore includes those additional sums, but the judgment gives no final total including them.