In the three weeks since the High Court significantly increased an award to a woman infected with hepatitis C, the number of appeals has increased tenfold. Over 200 people have now lodged appeals against awards from the hepatitis C compensation tribunal.
In April, the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Morris, increased by £100,000 an award of £165,000 "general damages" made by the tribunal to a woman infected with hepatitis C in 1977.
Last night the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, said the Attorney General was examining the judgment and its implications. "It may have wider implications - at this stage I do not know. I have to take advice on any implications. In the normal course of events the judgment by the President of the High Court would be examined by the Attorney General," Mr Cowen told The Irish Times.
Asked if he was surprised at the number of appeals lodged since the judgment, Mr Cowen said he did not wish to comment.
The average award paid out at the hepatitis C tribunal is £140,000. The judgment, on April 19th, was the first of the appeals from the compensation tribunal. It also breached the cap on personal injury damages after 15 years.
At that time there were more than 20 appeals against awards lodged. An official in the High Court told The Irish Times yesterday there were now some 200 appeals.
The first appeal, by a 44-year-old married woman, brought an increase of more than 60 per cent in her award. People infected with hepatitis C are entitled to appeal to the High Court within one month of their compensation award.
Those who had their cases heard before the tribunal had been established on a statutory basis were able to lodge an appeal before April 23rd to the High Court. The deadline came just five days after the High Court judgment.
Over 600 cases remain to be heard by the compensation tribunal. So far, according to a spokesman, the tribunal, which was set up on a statutory basis in November 1997, has made 1,234 awards, awarding £173 million. The highest award was £1.6 million and the lowest £200.
Legal sources last night described the number of people appealing as "very significant". But it was pointed out that all cases are different and "a rule of thumb" in terms of awards would not usually derive from a single case.
In his April judgment Mr Justice Morris said it would "work a genuine injustice" in the woman's case to hold that the cap of £150,000, plus whatever consumer index increase would be appropriate, was the limit of recoverable damages. The judge accepted her quality of life was ruined. She was aware, as she had said, that "I could be possibly facing a premature death".
In Mr Justice Morris's view, the cap on general damages to which the Supreme Court referred in a 1984 case, and other cases, had only limited relevance. The 1984 finding was at a time of depression, when interest rates were high and incomes, relative to today, were small.
The rate of interest available on investments bore no relationship to the 1984 rates and the cost of property had multiplied since that time. He said his experience dealing with infant settlements was the clearest possible test that the cap of £150,000 was no longer regarded as applicable by practitioners in the courts.
The correct measure of general damages "for a lady whose life had been effectively ruined" was £250,000, he said.