4000 euros a day!

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/dublin-airport-check-in-clerk-awarded-16-000-damages-1.2845881?ref=yfp


The judge catergorised the injury as mild. Her back was painful for four days and she had to take painkillers and have physiotherapy, he said.

Award: 16,650 Euros

This was a go to bed and take aspirin type of condition. The fact that her legal advisors considered it worthwhile to go to the high court for this speaks volumes about the ridiculous state of the compensation industry in Ireland.

TOEJOE

Does it matter what you and i think this is an ongoing problem and the government and court system is a joke.

mickdw

Joke of a system. She clearly had a manual handling course as they claimed her training wasnt specific - needed to be site specific.
So the employer pays for employee to go away and take a manual handling course. The employee having completed the course still doesn't know how to handle a suitcase so the employer has to pay. If this was a permanent injury, you could argue some sort of case but for a minor injury, absolute joke.

Carawaystick

On the other hand, if she was unable to work, for 4 days, I bet Ryanair would have fired her, so there's the incentive to sue, and appeal the DC verdict.

If FR offered her better training on her return to work and improved the layout of her work place, maybe she would not have taken a case.
If FR didnt make staff lift cases and let them use the existing machinery, the case would have taken off and flown away with no injury

Atlantic Dawn

The bag weighed between 7 and 8 kg, ffs, how in the jaysus would that weight do you any injury, I'd take that on a finger.

punisher5112

Was in court a while back full of compensation claims absolute madness.

Full of over 30 guards also in one court <<mod deletion>>

Mod
Keep it civil pls

Little CuChulainn

Carawaystick wrote: »

On the other hand, if she was unable to work, for 4 days, I bet Ryanair would have fired her, so there's the incentive to sue, and appeal the DC verdict.

These cases are often a result of bad employer behaviour and practices. In many cases if an employer took an active role in assisting the employee with medical bills and recovery there'd be a lot less incentive to sue.

punisher5112 wrote: »

Full of over 30 guards also in one court <<mod deletion>>

Case in point. I doubt there are man treated more poorly than Gardaí in this regard. Often having to go to the high court years later just to get your wages back if you were out of work due to an assault on the job. Ridiculous set up altogether.

punisher5112

Sorry mods and anyone else offended just very annoyed at the system to be honest.

Alpha99

It is very easy to ridicule the court system which we have. What the people posting on this forum fail to grasp is the fact that the same criteria apply in order to establish fault whether the injury sustained is minor or catastrophic.

What seems to be advocated here by many users of this forum is that people who suffer minor injuries should not initiate compensation claims, and if they do initiate such claims they are seen in a poor light by many users on this forum. However, on every occasion where there is an accident, there may be no injuries sustained as a result of pure luck, or there may be minor injuries, or there may be significant injuries or there may be catastrophic life threatening injuries or there may be fatal injuries.

The same negligent work systems can result in a range of severity in terms of the injury inflicted. Therefore, there is a public interest for people who suffer minor injuries in bringing claims, because it encourages an employer to take notice of their dangerous work practices and to implement measures to rectify risky business practices in order to avoid being sued, and it results in the occasions where peoples lives are put at risk being reduced. The second issue is that it renders risky work practices uneconomical. An employer should never be allowed to profit from cutting corners on keeping their staff and users of their service as safe as possible. The third issue is that where an injury is inflicted (even if minor) why the hell should the wrongdoer be allowed to walk away from the damage they caused without paying a penny to compensate the injured party.

hullaballoo

^^^Probably one of the best posts I've seen on this forum. (Edited in paragraphs as it was difficult to read on phone.)

There are quite a few realities surrounding the courts/legal system that are perhaps not recognised by the majority of people, since it's so easy to blame fatcat(!) lawyers and judges.

There is the above points in relation to PI claims and then there's the fact that sentencing is very light here because there aren't enough prisons, not because judges are daft.

hullaballoo

hullaballoo wrote: »

There are quite a few realities surrounding the courts/legal system that are perhaps not recognised by the majority of people, since it's so easy to blame fatcat(!) lawyers and judges.

The point I was making in the OP that 4 days of mild back pain is not worth 16,000 Euros. Five hundred plus medical expenses would be perfectly adequate. There are other, more appropriate ways of ensuring Health and Safety at work than giving awards which bear little relation to the injury sustained.
I strongly suspect that the real reason a case so superficial went to the high court was the desire to recoup legal costs. Its time we abolished the rule that costs follow the award as it only encourages unnecessary claims and also shifts the balance of power to the party with the deepest pockets, or those with empty pockets.

hullaballoo wrote: »

There's the fact that sentencing is very light here because there aren't enough prisons, not because judges are daft.

I sincerely hope you are mistaken here. You are asserting that judges are giving soft sentences because the politicians havent provided enough prison places. The Courts role is to dispense justice and to fail to do this because it would cause problems for the executive branch would be a grave offence to the principle of the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive.

hullaballoo

Deleted User wrote: »

The point I was making in the OP that 4 days of mild back pain is not worth 16,000 Euros. Five hundred plus medical expenses would be perfectly adequate. There are other, more appropriate ways of ensuring Health and Safety at work than giving awards which bear little relation to the injury sustained.
I strongly suspect that the real reason a case so superficial went to the high court was the desire to recoup legal costs. Its time we abolished the rule that costs follow the award as it only encourages unnecessary claims and also shifts the balance of power to the party with the deepest pockets, or those with empty pockets.

I couldn't comment on the amounts involved because I was not in court to hear the evidence and have not had sight of anything that would allow me to make an assessment of the injuries. Frankly, no one who wasn't directly involved can.

The case went to the High Court on appeal because the lawyers deemed the decision to dismiss the case as wrong. They were vindicated in the High Court. You don't appeal a decision you think is reasonable.

The rule that costs follow the event is in most cases the only thing that allows ordinary shallow pocketed individuals access to justice, the constitutionally protected right. I cannot see any rationale for disposing of the rule, since it ver effectively ensures that the wrongdoer pays and does not penalise the victims of wrongdoing.

I sincerely hope you are mistaken here. You are asserting that judges are giving soft sentences because the politicians havent provided enough prison places. The Courts role is to dispense justice and to fail to do this because it would cause problems for the executive branch would be a grave offence to the principle of the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive.

I don't follow you. How does the fact that judges are constrained in terms of their sentencing options by the resources available to them in any way implicate the doctrine of the separation of powers? That is the way sentencing works the world over. It is for the State to provide the judiciary with options in terms of sentencing. I genuinely can't see how this has any impact or in any way offends the principles of the separation of powers.

Nermal

hullaballoo wrote: »

It is for the State to provide the judiciary with options in terms of sentencing.

It's for the judiciary to decide sentences and for the State to apply them. It is really dangerous for a judge to suspend or shorten a sentence because no prison spaces are available - the appropriate sentence should be given regardless. Let the State sort out the logistics.

Nermal

Alpha99 wrote: »

It results in the occasions where peoples lives are put at risk being reduced.

Whose life is put at risk by lifting an 8kg bag, exactly?

Awards like this don't come out of thin air, or out of employer's profits. We all ultimately pay for them when the cost of insurance premiums are passed on to us.

Shuffling money around from customers to claimants via insurers and solicitors doesn't help us, it's just a drag on useful economic activity.

CalamariFritti

Manual handling course so that you know how to lift a bag. :pac: What type of people are we becoming eh? Golgafrincham.

square ball

Nermal wrote: »

Whose life is put at risk by lifting an 8kg bag, exactly?

Awards like this don't come out of thin air, or out of employer's profits. We all ultimately pay for them when the cost of insurance premiums are passed on to us.

Shuffling money around from customers to claimants via insurers and solicitors doesn't help us, it's just a drag on useful economic activity.

Who pays for the high court and circuit court costs? Taxpayer?

This type of pay out only encourages people to claim and sue as they see dollar signs when even a minor injury occurs.

For Christ sake she was checking in passengers luggage. Are we going to have two people at each check in desk in future to stop this from happening again?

Couple extra paid sick days, medical expenses paid and two to three hundred euro for 'pain and suffering' would have been more than enough.

hullaballoo

hullaballoo wrote: »

I couldn't comment on the amounts involved because I was not in court to hear the evidence and have not had sight of anything that would allow me to make an assessment of the injuries. Frankly, no one who wasn't directly involved can.

I'm happy to trust what the judge said; He " catergorised the injury as mild. Her back was painful for four days and she had to take painkillers and have physiotherapy, he said."

hullaballoo wrote: »

The case went to the High Court on appeal because the lawyers deemed the decision to dismiss the case as wrong. They were vindicated in the High Court. You don't appeal a decision you think is reasonable.

You don't appeal a decision that you win. Anything else is a matter of cost benefit.

hullaballoo wrote: »

The rule that costs follow the event is in most cases the only thing that allows ordinary shallow pocketed individuals access to justice, the constitutionally protected right. I cannot see any rationale for disposing of the rule, since it ver effectively ensures that the wrongdoer pays and does not penalise the victims of wrongdoing.

A shallow or even reasonably deep pocketed individual would be advised to be very cautious before getting involved with court proceedings with an extremely deep pocketed individual, even if totally in the right. A time will come when massive costs racheted up by the other side will mean that continuing with the case would be too much risk for an ordinary individual to bear. Cost following the judgement is a nice principle in common law juristictions when the parties are on equal footing but not when they are financially unequal.

hullaballoo wrote: »

I don't follow you. How does the fact that judges are constrained in terms of their sentencing options by the resources available to them in any way implicate the doctrine of the separation of powers? That is the way sentencing works the world over. It is for the State to provide the judiciary with options in terms of sentencing. I genuinely can't see how this has any impact or in any way offends the principles of the separation of powers.

If ten years is an appropriate term for a given crime, the judge would be very wrong to go softer simply because he is aware that the executive have not provided enough prison places. It is for the judge to sentence properly, and for the executive to live up to their responsibility to provide enough prison places. Judges giving softer sentences than appropriate are firstly failing the public and secondly allowing the executive off the hook for failing to provide enough prison places.