A boy of ten, who suffered devastating injuries when the car driven by his uninsured mother drifted into the path of an oncoming vehicle, has had the settlement of his compensation claim against parent approved at the High Court in Dublin.
Ms Justice Mary Irvine heard at Dublin´s High Court how Cullen Kennedy from Loughrea, County Galway, was being driven to school by his mother – Margaret Kennedy – on 5th May 2008. The court was told that Cullen temporarily distracted his mother, causing her a “momentary lapse of concentration”, due to which she veered across the road and into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
Neither Margaret Kennedy nor the driver of the other vehicle were seriously injured, but Cullen – who had been strapped into a back seat bolster chair – was thrown against the windscreen of the vehicle and suffered severe spinal injuries. Despite being immediately rushed to hospital, Cullen is now a quadriplegic who is confined to a wheelchair and can only breathe with the assistance of a ventilator.
As his mother was not insured, Cullen was unable to claim compensation for his injuries directly from a car insurance policy so, through his grandmother, a compensation claim against parent was made to the Motor Insurers´ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI). A settlement of 11.5 million Euros was agreed for Cullen´s future care but, before giving her approval to the settlement, Ms Justice Mary Irvine raised concerns that laws providing for periodic payment orders (PPOs) had not yet been introduced.
Although describing the settlement of the compensation claim against parent as “excellent” for Cullen, Ms Justice Mary Irvine admitted that the courts were gambling with the lives of claimants all the while there was the risk that catastrophically injured people would live longer than medical experts predicted and subsequently ran out of funds to provide for their care.
She noted that although a working group chaired by Mr Justice John Quirke had reported in October 2010 that legislation should be introduced to allow cases concerning a catastrophic injury to be settled on the basis of annual payments, no action had been taken – leaving the courts to guess at the future welfare and security of the most vulnerable litigants.