Personal Injury Claims
The Doctors’ Bill
The extent of injury inflicted on hospital patients by clinical negligence is a case in point. We do not know what it is. When it happens the consequences are real. Somebody somewhere pays for the injury. Clearly, the victim suffers the injury and pays in that fashion. The family of the victim may pay in care deployed or care costs paid. Or, if the family consists of children of the victim, the children may suffer diminished life opportunities by being deprived of care they would have got from the victim.
Emma Duddy v North Western Health Board & Anor.
She suffers from cerebral palsy after the alleged mismanagement of her birth.
Causation in Medical Negligence
In a medical negligence action, in order to fix the Defendant with responsibility, the Plaintiff may have to prove that his illness (his medical condition) was not the cause of his injuries.
Cerebral Palsy claims * : The Statute of Limitations for injuries at birth
Time only runs against a plaintiff who knows he/she has been injured (or could reasonably ascertain he/she has been injured) AND knows who or what has injured him/her (or could reasonably ascertain who or what has injured him/her).
Business is Business
Under the Regulations, the plaintiff client will become liable for fees only if he/she:
a) fails to co-operate with the legal representative;
b) fails to attend any medical or expert examination or court hearing which the legal representative reasonably requests him to attend;
c) fails to give necessary instructions to the legal representative; or
d) withdraws instructions from the legal representative.
What happened?
With regard to the tort of negligence, road traffic accidents are exceptional. They are exceptional because they conceal the fact that, often, the factual cause of an event is not discovered.
PIAB complete
The MIBI was not mentioned specifically in the 2003 Act, hence the doubt. The judgment makes sense; anything else would have been an anomaly. Indeed, in a very real sense the 2003 Act was intended to apply to the MIBI more than anyone or anything else; they are the insurance industry.
Secret
What is staggering is that the reason the public needs to know such things is to ensure that the HSE management effectively deals with the problems that would be revealed generally.
Damages
In OâConnor v OâDriscoll [2004] IEHC the Plaintiff was a bank executive who was injured in a road traffic accident (âRTAâ?). The court made the following finding; The case is highly unusual. The physical injuries sustained by the plaintiff were soft tissue damage to his neck and low back as well as some relatively minor damage to three upper teeth on the left side. The plaintiff in addition to these physical injuries also underwent a severe psychological reaction to the […]
A Laughing Stock
Now, we risk being the laughing stock of Australia (and the UK in due course) because none of our lawyers have sold shares in themselves.