The High Court assessed damages at €775,478 for a man who suffered severe burns in a workplace accident and later learned that a blood product used during his treatment had been made partly from a donor’s blood. The donor subsequently developed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The court made no award for the possibility that the plaintiff might develop the disease in future.
The proceedings were at the assessment-of-damages stage only. Liability for the May 2005 accident was not disputed. The plaintiff, whose identity was protected by a court order, suffered burns over half his body. The burns included life-threatening full-thickness injuries. He underwent operations and skin grafts, and required a large blood-product replacement after severe bleeding during surgery.
The judgment said 75% of his body was scarred. His grafted skin remained fragile and sensitive, restricted his ability to do manual work and affected his comfort in hot and cold conditions. He also experienced psychological distress after being told he was at risk of vCJD. Medical evidence described post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression and persistent anxiety about his health and the effect on his family. Experts gave sharply different estimates of his risk, and no test could establish whether he would develop the disease. The court found his fears were real and grounded in the information he had received.
The judge said the plaintiff had suffered established damage from the burns and from the distress of learning about his exposure. But the court could not compensate him as though he would develop vCJD, or award damages for a possibility rather than a probability. Provisional damages were not then available for ordinary personal injury claims, the judgment said. The defendants declined a proposal to place money in an interest-bearing account for the plaintiff’s benefit if he later developed the disease.
The court said the plaintiff could return if he developed vCJD in future. It awarded €500,000 for past pain and suffering, including mental distress and psychological trauma, and €200,000 for future pain and suffering. The remaining awards were €7,600 for agreed past expenses; €1,050 for travel to the UK for medical advice; €7,000 for losses incurred by his wife; €19,828 for additional staff employed while his wife was unavailable for work; and €40,000 for specified future medical, travel, subsistence and earnings costs over 15 years.
The listed awards total €775,478. The judgment also made an order restricting publication or broadcast of material that could identify the plaintiff as someone exposed to the blood product.