The High Court awarded an anonymised former garda €75,981.30 in compensation, finding that a 2000 assault at work was one of several causes of his depression and early retirement, rather than the sole cause as he claimed.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as Garda B, broke a little finger on his right hand while trying to restrain a violent deportee on 3 July 2000. The fracture healed fully after limited treatment and left no functional disability. He later retired on medical grounds in December 2005, aged 50, citing depression. He claimed €310,893 in lost earnings, alongside damages for pain and suffering and medical expenses.
The State accepted that the incident contributed to his depression, but disputed that it caused the condition alone. The court preferred evidence from the State’s psychiatrist, Dr Devitt, to that of the applicant’s psychiatrist, Dr Denihan, on the question of causation. It relied in part on medical records describing anxiety and workplace stress before and after the assault, including a separate dispute over annual leave in April 2000. The judge concluded that the April incident, workplace stress and a pre-existing personality disorder were also factors.
The court awarded €42,699 for the share of post-February 2001 lost earnings it attributed to the July incident, rather than the larger amount claimed. It also awarded €5,101.51 for lost overtime during the period from the incident until the applicant returned to work in February 2001, €8,180.30 in agreed medical expenses, and €10,000 each for pain and suffering from the finger fracture and the depression.
The judgment also addressed the lack of settlements in Garda compensation cases. Citing court statistics for 2014 to 2017, it said none of 384 claims was resolved out of court. The judge said written offers could encourage settlement and reduce legal costs, while allowing applicants to proceed to a hearing if they rejected an offer.
The court proposed that the State make a written offer within seven days, or as soon as practicable, after a case is set down for hearing. It also set out how an offer could be considered when deciding legal costs if the eventual award did not exceed it. The proposal was not yet in force: the court gave counsel for both sides liberty to make submissions before it took effect.