The High Court awarded a former healthcare assistant €60,272 in damages for a lower-back injury sustained while lifting a patient at work in September 2018. The HSE admitted liability on the second day of the hearing, which then proceeded solely to assess damages.
Mr Justice Cian Ferriter delivered judgment on 7 March 2023. He found that the plaintiff continued to experience intermittent back pain more than four years after the accident and was likely to have manageable symptoms for years to come. He awarded €35,000 for past pain and suffering and €22,500 for future pain and suffering. Special damages had been agreed at €2,772.
The plaintiff’s medical evidence included reports from consultant orthopaedic surgeon Mr John Rice, whom her solicitor had referred directly. The HSE argued that this should reduce the weight given to his evidence, particularly because he had not seen her GP records. The judge rejected the suggestion that a direct solicitor referral was, by itself, a reason to discount an expert’s evidence. He said the key requirements were that an expert be properly informed and provide an objective opinion in keeping with the duty to the court.
The judge found no challenge had been made to Mr Rice’s independence in cross-examination and accepted his evidence as fair and independent. He noted that the plaintiff had accurately conveyed her relevant medical history and that the HSE’s medical experts also had not been given her GP records. The three experts regarded the plaintiff as credible about her symptoms. The judge preferred the views of Mr Rice and the HSE’s Mr Thomas Burke, who considered continuing pain could be linked to the accident, over Mr Aidan Gleeson’s view that the ongoing symptoms were unrelated.
The plaintiff said her injury led her to leave healthcare work and abandon her ambition to become a nurse. She was studying law and human rights at the time of judgment and hoped to become a human rights advocate. The judge accepted the accident was a factor in her career choice but gave that claim limited weight: she had changed direction before receiving medical advice that she could not work as a nurse, and there was no evidence she would earn less in her chosen career.
The judgment records no structural or nerve damage, and no need for surgery or specialist pain treatment. The award compensates the plaintiff’s assessed injuries and losses; liability had already been admitted.