€64k for a sore bum? I'm off to Dunnes for some "shopping"!

dr.fuzzenstein

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/woman-who-fell-in-dunnes-stores-awarded-64-000-1.2705466

I have to say, €64k is a nice bit of money for falling on your arse. So far so the usual for the lottery of stupidity.
But the standout bit for me was:

He noted Ms Prior accepted, since the accident, that she did high energy dance routines as part of her musical performances and other activities, some of which were posted on social media.

Also:

Noting the online posts, the judge said Ms Prior was able to pursue fairly active sporting and recreation activities and it was clear she was “a fit young lady”.

So, she can dance like the Dickens and pursue many sporting activities. She can't be that "crippled for life" as these people like to cry in court.
Mod: <snip>

Fleawuss

To use the idiotic americanism, it seems that there is money in claiming to be "butt hurt".

dr.fuzzenstein

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

So, she can dance like the Dickens and pursue many sporting activities. She can't be that "crippled for life" as these people like to cry in court.

As long as there's easy payouts for compo vultures, there will be bogus claims such as this one.

Not sure she cried crippled for life at all, the Judge said she was a good witness.

Not sure anyone claimed it was a bogus claim. If you say there was fraud involved, that's a very serious claim and you should contact the Gardaí, not stick it up here.

Not sure it was an easy payout, it was a fully contested claim.

The Moldy Gowl

She will have constant back pain after her gigs becuase she fell in Dunnes becuase they didn't clean up milk.
Do you think she should stop her job?

These threads are always a witch hunt

selastich2

Not another one who was a dancer before the accident...it seems to be a common theme :rolleyes:

Zillah

Despite her injuries Ms Prior had tried to get on with her life but “would pay for her activities in the days after a gig”, he found.

They don't go into much detail here but the suggestion is that she experiences pain and possibly disability for days after forcing herself through something vigorous.

Regardless, judging a case by a couple of lines in a brief news article is incredibly stupid. The judge, an expert on law, listened to days or possibly weeks of evidence and decided she had suffered enough to warrant a pay out. Are we sure a handful of lines from a Times article puts us in a position to contradict him?

The Moldy Gowl

Zillah wrote: »

They don't go into much detail here but the suggestion is that she experiences pain and possibly disability for days after forcing herself through something vigorous.

Regardless, judging a case by a couple of lines in a brief news article is incredibly stupid. The judge, an expert on law, listened to days or possibly weeks of evidence and decided she had suffered enough to warrant a pay out. Are we sure a handful of lines from a Times article puts us in a position to contradict him?

Any time I read these threads, they are always judged by a paragraph from the article.

In all of these threads that people are posting, it is just so obvious that the business was in the wrong and not anybody else.

Lyaiera

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

So, she can dance like the Dickens and pursue many sporting activities. She can't be that "crippled for life" as these people like to cry in court.

These people? Like this person who never made that claim.

Noting the online posts, the judge said Ms Prior was able to pursue fairly active sporting and recreation activities and it was clear she was “a fit young lady”. However, she would have to adapt her lifestyle to take account of her condition.

Overall she was “a truthful witness” who had not attempted to “overstate” her injuries and was “genuine in her complaints”, he found.

Well done on your quote mining dr.fuzzenstein. It's amazing how even a brief article like the one on the ITs can be mis-portrayed, to support a completely untruthful claim like yours. Of course no-one would consider actually going reading the article for themselves.

Allinall

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/woman-who-fell-in-dunnes-stores-awarded-64-000-1.2705466

I have to say, €64k is a nice bit of money for falling on your arse. So far so the usual for the lottery of stupidity.
But the standout bit for me was:



Also:



So, she can dance like the Dickens and pursue many sporting activities. She can't be that "crippled for life" as these people like to cry in court.
As long as there's easy payouts for compo vultures, there will be bogus claims such as this one.

Were there many in the public gallery of the court when you were down to listen and witness the full details of the case?

Nermal

The Moldy Gowl wrote: »

She will have constant back pain after her gigs becuase she fell in Dunnes becuase they didn't clean up milk.

Back pain cannot be proven, so no compensation should be paid for it.

The medical evidence for back pain amounts to a doctor signing a form saying 'this guy says he has back pain'.

Stasi 2.0

The upside of high awards from accidents is that businesses are given a powerful incentive to be damn careful about the health and safety of their staff, customers and the general public which can only be a good thing.

The misplaced sympathy for a company like Dunnes is pretty laughable.

dr.fuzzenstein

OK, consensus seems to be that €64k is a reasonable payout for falling on your arse.
I hope you will also think that car insurance going north of €1k is also reasonable.
Its a stupid amount of money. And anyone who suggests the system isn't milked mercilessly by anyone who has suffered any kind of scratch and owie is a bit "innocent" I would say.
I could walk into Dunnes, find a puddle, "fall" on my arse and get a payout. And I don't even have to pretend to hobble about for a while afterwards. I could do with the money.

Stasi 2.0

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I could walk into Dunnes, find a puddle, "fall" on my arse and get a payout. And I don't even have to pretend to hobble about for a while afterwards. I could do with the money.

If you are suggesting that is what the lady in question is done that is quite possibly defamation. I look forward to you defending that one in court.

Allinall

[QUOTE=dr.fuzzenstein;100279406]OK, consensus seems to be that €64k is a reasonable payout for falling on your arse.
I hope you will also think that car insurance going north of €1k is also reasonable.
Its a stupid amount of money. And anyone who suggests the system isn't milked mercilessly by anyone who has suffered any kind of scratch and owie is a bit "innocent" I would say.
I could walk into Dunnes, find a puddle, "fall" on my arse and get a payout. And I don't even have to pretend to hobble about for a while afterwards. I could do with the money.[/QUOTE]

How on earth did you come to that conclusion?

seamus

Seems fairly reasonable to me. She's 32 and will likely find herself struggling with back problems getting worse and worse as the decades wear on. Once the damage to your back is done, is basically doesn't go away.

The Moldy Gowl

Nermal wrote: »

Back pain cannot be proven, so no compensation should be paid for it.

The medical evidence for back pain amounts to a doctor signing a form saying 'this guy says he has back pain'.

Can't be proven? Fair enough. So let's assume she is guilty and milking the system. Sounds like a compromise.

She looks and appears like a decent person to me and one who wants to continue on her with her life doing her gigs.

hullaballoo

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

OK, consensus seems to be that €64k is a reasonable payout for falling on your arse.
I hope you will also think that car insurance going north of €1k is also reasonable.

Witch hunt. What has a fall in Dunnes Stores, a supermarket, got to do with the cost of car insurance?

The fact that car insurance has gone up is because insurance companies are greedy. Payouts have been more or less static for a decade or more at this point and lawyers have reduced their fees by 30-70% in some cases.

I don't know the details of this case, just like you, but I do know that for the award to be €64k, there must be some significant loss to the Plaintiff. You don't get that kind of money for just having a sore back on its own.

tina1040

Nermal wrote: »

Back pain cannot be proven, so no compensation should be paid for it.

The medical evidence for back pain amounts to a doctor signing a form saying 'this guy says he has back pain'.

So what happens to the people who have ongoing back and neck pain from an accident that was caused by another? Should they get nothing where the person with a broken bone is compensated?

seamus

seamus wrote: »

Seems fairly reasonable to me. She's 32 and will likely find herself struggling with back problems getting worse and worse as the decades wear on. Once the damage to your back is done, is basically doesn't go away.

This is what a lot of people don't seem to understand - this and the woman that dislocated their ankle - while they might seem trivial, the effects last a lifetime.

Nermal

Nermal wrote: »

Back pain cannot be proven, so no compensation should be paid for it.

The medical evidence for back pain amounts to a doctor signing a form saying 'this guy says he has back pain'.

That's why, of course, the reports amount to a lot more than a reference to pain and contain details of examinations and observations, and a lot more than the form you suggest.

If back injury cannot be proven, do you think the health sector should continue to throw money at nurses, doctors and consultants who deal with back issues, or should patients be turned away by doctors unless they show an actual physical issue that shows up on an xray?

seamus

hullaballoo wrote: »

The fact that car insurance has gone up is because insurance companies are greedy. Payouts have been more or less static for a decade or more at this point and lawyers have reduced their fees by 30-70% in some cases.

Stricter solvency rules came into effect on 1st January.
Insurance companies have been aware of these coming for ages but decided to ignore it until it actually happened and are now furiously loading the burden onto their customers in order to build their reserves. They chose to do this rather than quietly build their reserves in the background pver the last 7 years.

Of course they're blaming it all on high payouts and insurance fraud because they want to cover up their poor governance and financial mismanagement.

hullaballoo

seamus wrote: »

Stricter solvency rules came into effect on 1st January.
Insurance companies have been aware of these coming for ages but decided to ignore it until it actually happened and are now furiously loading the burden onto their customers in order to build their reserves. They chose to do this rather than quietly build their reserves in the background pver the last 7 years.

Of course they're blaming it all on high payouts and insurance fraud because they want to cover up their poor governance and financial mismanagement.

No no no.

It's the €14-16K whiplash payouts that are crippling these multi-billion euro business. I am sure of it.

CosmicSmash

Another keyboard warrior starting threads about something they know little about. It would give me great pleasure if she spent some of that money suing you for defamation.

Ronald Wilson Reagan

I strained my neck applying some sun scream this morning, who do I have to sue to get some moolah justice?

foxy farmer

Highly likely that Dunnes will appeal the award. They usually contest any case vigorously.

foxy farmer

foxy farmer wrote: »

Highly likely that Dunnes will appeal the award. They usually contest any case vigorously.

They are no shrinking violets. Afair they have their own in house legal team, and would know a lot more about slip and fall cases than pretty much most of the legal teams they come up against.

That and employment law...

dr.fuzzenstein

Stasi 2.0 wrote: »

If you are suggesting that is what the lady in question is done that is quite possibly defamation. I look forward to you defending that one in court.

I'm saying that falling on your arse and getting money for it is the easiest thing to do in this country.
If you don't get greedy and just ask for something "reasonable" like €20k, it won't even make it to court. Get a neckbrace, a doctor's cert, you will have money pressed into your sweaty palm in not time.
I find it naive in the extreme that nobody seems to think this sort of fraud is going on all the time.
And yes, I have had a bad back. As in a proper bad back, a "can't even get out of bed" bad back. The last thing you will do is sing and dance or pursue any other kind of other vigorous sporting activity. If you are properly injured, there is no such thing as just making yourself do it and to fight through the pain.
And if you are fit enough for all of that, well then your back just isn't that bad. At least not what I would describe as €64k bad.

The Backwards Man

Sore back my hole.

She never spent a day gathering spuds or threshing corn in her life.

duffman3833

bubble wrap everything, that's how to stop this

Nermal

The Moldy Gowl wrote: »

Can't be proven? Fair enough. So let's assume she is guilty and milking the system.

I didn't say that. She may perfectly well be telling the truth about her pain, but we have no way of verifying that, so we should not be awarding damages for it.

tina1040 wrote: »

So what happens to the people who have ongoing back and neck pain from an accident that was caused by another? Should they get nothing where the person with a broken bone is compensated?

They should get nothing for symptoms not backed up by physical evidence.

Deleted User wrote: »

If back injury cannot be proven, do you think the health sector should continue to throw money at nurses, doctors and consultants who deal with back issues, or should patients be turned away by doctors unless they show an actual physical issue that shows up on an xray?

Not really, it's not expensive to treat back pain that has no obvious cause. A prescription for some painkillers won't break the bank.

Lux23

Deleted User wrote: »

In all of these threads that people are posting, it is just so obvious that the business was in the wrong and not anybody else.

This seems to be a new form of Irish begrudgery. If a company makes a mistake that puts people at risk of injury or death, then they must be punished in some form.

JinkyJackson

These threads are the new Dole bashing threads, begrudgers.

seamus

Nermal wrote: »

I didn't say that. She may perfectly well be telling the truth about her pain, but we have no way of verifying that, so we should not be awarding damages for it.

They should get nothing for symptoms not backed up by physical evidence.

Seriously? So if someone claims to suffer crippling migraines after a blow to the head, the court should just ignore that and give them a few quid for the initial trauma?

Special Circumstances

hullaballoo wrote: »

Witch hunt. What has a fall in Dunnes Stores, a supermarket, got to do with the cost of car insurance?

The fact that car insurance has gone up is because insurance companies are greedy. Payouts have been more or less static for a decade or more at this point and lawyers have reduced their fees by 30-70% in some cases.

I don't know the details of this case, just like you, but I do know that for the award to be €64k, there must be some significant loss to the Plaintiff. You don't get that kind of money for just having a sore back on its own.

The good doctor fuzzenstein is firmly of the opinion that €600 is the fair maximum total compensation package for soft tissue neck/back injuries.

Stasi 2.0

Nermal wrote: »

They should get nothing for symptoms not backed up by physical evidence..

Why should the burden of proof be on the person who wasn't responsible for the accident ? That's not how civil cases work.

Nermal

Nermal wrote: »

Not really, it's not expensive to treat back pain that has no obvious cause. A prescription for some painkillers won't break the bank.

So the whole pain management issue in back problems, a growing area in medicine, is in your eyes really just an exercise in throwing painkillers at them?

You haven't really met someone with chronic back problems, have you? Someone who, say, has lost their job and can't get out of a couch or can't even sleep after an accident? The ones I know would usually far prefer their lives back than the money. Many of them will not actually even go into the detail as to how it may affect them, like young people who feel that they will never have a normal sex life, they hold themselves "funny" and will be sneered at and won't get dates, they may actually fear what will happen to them if they carry a child and so on. Some will get PTSD, no no, that's not another condition for you to dismiss, but PTSD as diagnosed by psychiatrists. They see their careers ruined, their lives change in an instant.

You should meet someone when they are told that essentially they will never improve and for the rest of their lives it's all about pain management. You could tell them they're making it up, take a few paracetamol. And rub their hands at the 100k they may have to apportion over the rest of their lives.

Two Tone

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

OK, consensus seems to be that €64k is a reasonable payout for falling on your arse.

Really? Thought the general consensus was that you've no grounds for some of the conclusions you jumped to.

The amount seems very high in my opinion but I would need access to all the details before concluding that she should not have been paid it. I don't this case means that everyone who slips in Dunnes Stores will get that kind of compensation; these are case by case occurrences.

AudreyHepburn

Compo Culture at it's finest.

If she is still capable of doing high energy dance routines then the fall can't have affected her that badly.

What ever happen to accidents just being accidents?

Allinall

It has been established almost without question that rising insurance premia are (largely, but not exclusively) due to financial mismanagement in the insurance industry during the boom years, when premia were excessively low.

However, there is also evidence that the scale of personal injury payouts is sometimes out-of-kilter with international standards, and legal costs are a significant and ongoing problem in this country. I would quite frankly question the motives of those who are denying that problem exists.

I'm not sure about the case in question, but at first sight, it seems like a lot of money for a person who can engage in some rigorous dance moves. Back pain is notoriously difficult to disprove, so suspicions are fairly natural.


One more thing.

Allinall wrote: »

Were there many in the public gallery of the court when you were down to listen and witness the full details of the case?

This really gets on my tits, too. If the article is inaccurate, it is you who should be pointing it out. It is perfectly legitimate for anyone to honestly comment on a newspaper article of a court decision.

There is this ridiculous tradition on here, sometimes, that 'oh if you weren't there, just shut up, you don't know'.

If that silly canon were to carry any weight, there would probably be less than 15 people in the whole country, on average, entitled to comment on any individual court case.

dr.fuzzenstein

Special Circumstances wrote: »

The good doctor fuzzenstein is firmly of the opinion that €600 is the fair maximum total compensation package for soft tissue neck/back injuries.

And the good Mr SC believes that every single claim is genuine and everyone in a 5 km/h car park shunt should immediately have €20k forced into their hand whilst still on the scene of the accident to deal with their horrific, life changing, devastating injuries. Anyone actually injured, you'd give them a million I bet. I can misrepresent and hyperbole with the best, so don't even start.

Two Tone

Jayz you're some man for making up stuff people never said, Doc.

Bongalongherb

Has anyone ever walked into supervalu in boroimhe swords after it been raining beforehand ? It's amazing the balance you have when both of your legs are flaying about on the wet floor just after the entrance to this store.

I could have broke myself up after slipping on it, but my master balance kept me atop. Why the heck do they always build shopping centres with the slipperiest of floors ? I pitied the poor foreign guy that was vulgarly told to get the mop and clean the water from the slippery tiles.

Am I an asshole or an idiot for not falling down in pretendness to claim my gold ?. Some payouts they are giving out these days, but it is morally wrong to fake it, but some folks will go all the way for printed paper. My arse is sore now from sitting down for so long, so I'm off for a walk in the valley.

Allinall

Bongalongherb wrote: »

.... My arse is sore now from sitting down for so long, so I'm off for a walk in the valley.

Have a good trip. -:)

dr.fuzzenstein

Two Tone wrote: »

Jayz you're some man for making up stuff people never said, Doc.

Me and SC go way back. Bit of an in joke at this stage. We have different ideas what constitutes an injury and what a fair level of payout is.

Two Tone

In fairness I detest people who would sue their mother for having them too, but in high-profile compensation cases... I don't think the money would be handed out just for the craic. So I might agree it seems like too much but I would need to have the full facts of the case to make an assessment. Not trying to be contrarian but I do think there is bound to be more to it than just the surface facts churned out by a newspaper.

As said by someone else too, Dunnes Stores are pretty ruthless - they are not gonna cave unless REALLY pushed.

JPCN1

Nermal wrote: »

Back pain cannot be proven, so no compensation should be paid for it.

The medical evidence for back pain amounts to a doctor signing a form saying 'this guy says he has back pain'.

Accidents happen. Always have and always will and ascribing monetary value to them is wrong in a certain sense. Let the insurance company pick up the physio bills would seem fair...

nullzero

Before this trial Dunnes had no Prior convictions... I'll see myself out.

Markcheese

JPCN1 wrote:

Accidents happen. Always have and always will and ascribing monetary value to them is wrong in a certain sense. Let the insurance company pick up the physio bills would seem fair...

Pretty much what I always say... no one goes to court to make their physio rich ... I dont know how you'd distinguish between someones dance related back injuries (or builder or farmer or sports ect ) and their slipped on milk in dunnes injuries , but it'd be a lot better than the current situation...
Incidentally how do you account for crap footware that will slide on wet surfaces...or crap surfaces that have no grip.. in a court case can dunnes get the shoes in question tested and say we're not responsible cause these are ****e in damp conditions'... or the dancer do the same for dunnes floor.. or am I watching too much american telly..

FortySeven

For a dancer she didn't appear to have very good balance. I slip on stuff all the time and don't remember falling over but then I am fit and healthy and have good balance....Oh wait?

Some old wan or overweight or partially sighted. Fair enough, this woman is in her prime, fit as a fiddle and apparently quite sprightly and nimble with an elevated sense of balance. She fell on her arse? Hard enough to break something? From a 3 foot fall?

Madness. Logic says it is not so, experience says it is not so. She should have been left with the legal bills. Chancer.

Never mind milk on her arse, she should have egg on her face.

hullaballoo

I've seen defendants run the inappropriate shoe defence and it goes down like a lead balloon. I've seen awards doubled because defendants tried arguing the plaintiff was wearing sandals when the appropriate shoes should have been hard toe boots.

The response is that we should all probably always wear hard toe boots just in case but reality is very different.

Accidents certainly do happen but if someone caused the situation, they should pay for it. It's funny, this concept has been really accepted for thousands of years at this stage but only recently have people started to think that victims are responsible for what happens to them.

Also, it strikes me that a lot of people are happy to state that they'd never sue of they had a fall but I guarantee none of them have suffered the consequences of a serious injury.

And insurance premiums are going up because insurance companies are assholes and that's the end of it. Nothing to do with claims - they'll always be at the same level.