Tagged: compensation
Accident; No witnesses (Requiescat in Pace)
a collision took place between a car and a lorry. It occurred on a straight stretch of road at night with no witnesses. The drivers and other occupants died. The available evidence was inconclusive as to fault. The court apportioned blame equally between the two drivers.
Accident: Settlement (Sign Here…)
The courts have frequently rejected arguments that claims have been settled, as purportedly evidenced by “releases” signed by Plaintiffs.
Accident: Pedestrian (Hello!)
The court, accepting a calculation that the car that hit her had been traveling at not more than 30 mph and was about 75 ft. from the crossing when the Plaintiff began to cross decided she had not been guilty of contributory negligence. She was 10 ft. onto the crossing when she was hit.
Car Accident (Gotcha?)
The Defendant driver admitted he did not see the Plaintiff pedestrian. The Plaintiff was an admirable witness, given that he was thrown into the air by the Defendant’s taxi. The Defendant gave evidence of the Plaintiff’s head hitting his windscreen. The judgment does not record the Plaintiff’s evidence in detail on the point, but if it was tendered it would probably have been in terms of the Defendant’s windscreen hitting him on the head.
Accident statistics (Wrong Number)
I imagine the reason for this is the tendency for failures to detect bone damage in x-rays to come to light by the pathetic return of the patient to the hospital with exacerbated injuries from neglect of the original injury.
I Misspoke Myself
We are all of us guilty, at some time or other, of doing this. We have firm clear recollections of where we left the keys, the hand blender, the tea-bags, the car insurance etc. We were wrong. Nevertheless, we conveyed (even propagated) the wrong information to someone else. Errors of this kind are common. Significantly, being wrong is not evidence of wrongdoing.
Phew!
Insurance has a strange aspect which we often overlook; we are happy that we did not need it.
Book of Quantum
The Supreme Court decided the award of €90,000 by the High Court for the injury was too low. It increased the award to €120,000.
Strict Liability?
Many claims against employers can and will fail when the claim is made as one of negligence by the employer. However, because of the multitude of duties imposed on employers by statute, it is common for the employer to be found liable to the employee for an injury even where the employer has not been “at fault” (meaning, here, “negligent”).