Compensation and Liability...

gozunda

Where is the line between an accident as a simple tragedy or an assignment of liability where compensation is sought and awarded in the case of non dependants?

The recent court ruling in the favour of a claimant over the death of a mother and child resulting in €100000 compensation award for mental distress. The case involved an action by the grandmother and siblings against both the local authority and the driver (the partner and father of the desceased) for liability.

LINK

Firstly I find this type of action where someone / everyone is potentially liable for an accident questions the possibility of any accidents occuring without liability and secondly although I personally I agree with the awarding of compensation especially in the case of direct dependants and where there is clear case of libaility, I find the making of a claim against the estate of the deceased driver and partner on the basis that the driver had been in breach of his statutory duty to pay full attention to any oncoming traffic somewhat strange and bizare.

MagicSean

The line in Irish litigation is quite blurry.

Milk & Honey

There is no question of someone/everyone being liable for every accident. If a person is sued and they are found not liable, they will be awarded the costs of defending the claim against the claimant. This happens quite frequently. It is entirely possible that a number of people contribute to causing an accident. It is often not clear who is liable until the hearing in court. A classic case is where a person is injured while being treated in hospital. If an operation goes wrong it might be the anaesthetist, the surgeon, the nursing staff, the hospital administration and possibly others. If no one admits liability all will be sued. IF one of them is found liable they will have to pay the costs of the claimant and all of the other defendants.
Why should the estate of a negligent driver not be sued? If you are cycling your bicycle along the road and a driver busy yapping on his mobile phone knocks you off the bicycle and leaves you in a wheelchair for life but then continues on into a lamp post and dies, do you think you should not sue his estate? Are you saying the if the driver had survived you would sue him? As it happens in that case the drivers insurance company paid up. Exactly the same thing would have happened if the driver survived. His insurance would have paid.

drkpower

Milk & Honey wrote: »

A classic case is where a person is injured while being treated in hospital. If an operation goes wrong it might be the anaesthetist, the surgeon, the nursing staff, the hospital administration and possibly others. If no one admits liability all will be sued. IF one of them is found liable they will have to pay the costs of the claimant and all of the other defendants.

Not anymore. In the case of clinical negligence, only the Hospital is sued, as an enterprise covering all those who work there.

MagicSean

Am I right in saying that the word accident has been all but removed from official use now? I know it is no longer used in relation to car crashes and emergency departments.

gozunda

I think its in this case the fact of the dead were not being imune to been sued (albeit through their estate) even though that individual also lost their life in the same crash. Moreover the added facts that the deceased was both the partner and father to the two other individuals who died in that car crash and the fact the suers (sp?) were not direct dependants of the those that died or physically involved in the accident.

In effect the deceased was sued for liability. However the deceased was not able to offer any direct defence or evidence to refute or confirm the facts of the case. Take for instance an imaginary scenario where the child gets sick or somehow causes the driver to become otherwise distractred. There are no survivors to offer a defence other than the physical evidence that an accident actually took place and that there were a number of fatalities.