About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] IEHC 638
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice Cian Ferriter

Delivering judgment for the High Court, Mr Justice Cian Ferriter determined that notwithstanding the court’s finding that the plaintiff had overstated her symptoms, an award of €60,000 for the plaintiff’s PTSD, discounted by 50 per cent for external contributing and exacerbating factors not attributable to the accident, was appropriate.

Background

In December 2017, the plaintiff was stopped at a red traffic light in Finglas, Co Dublin. When the lights changed, the plaintiff’s vehicle began to move off and was rear-ended by the defendant’s vehicle. The plaintiff was wearing a seatbelt and the airbags of her vehicle did not deploy.

Later that day, the plaintiff felt unwell and attended CareDoc. She was referred to a hospital the following day, where she was diagnosed with soft tissue injuries to her neck, shoulder and right arm.

The plaintiff alleged that she took seven weeks’ sick leave from her job as a pharmacy assistant and found work difficult upon her return due to her injuries. She further complained that she experienced inter alia anxiety, flashbacks to the accident and sleep disturbance.

The plaintiff’s employment was terminated at the end of December 2021 and she began to receive invalidity pension from September 2022. The plaintiff did not work since then, and she and her daughter were made homeless in March 2023.

The plaintiff had also experienced a number of difficult years prior to the accident, having lost her parents and having experienced difficulties with a colleague which led her to require medication for anxiety and depression. Notwithstanding, the plaintiff alleged that she was not experiencing any mental health difficulties at the time of the accident.

The plaintiff’s case came before the High Court on an assessment-only basis. Although the defendant’s insurers accepted liability for the accident, a question arose as to whether the defendant could be held liable for PTSD alleged to have resulted from the accident and if so, the extent to which the plaintiff’s ongoing physical and psychological symptoms were properly referable to the accident.

The defendant argued that the accident was not causative of the plaintiff’s mental health problems and that same were in existence at the time of the accident, relying on the fact that the claim was introduced very belatedly into the plaintiff’s case and that she improperly failed to disclose relevant prior mental health history until shortly before the hearing.

The High Court

Mr Justice Ferriter noted that the plaintiff’s failure to disclose her prior mental health history was “distinctly unimpressive” and that she was “inclined to overstate the severity of her symptoms”.

The judge explained that the suppression of the plaintiff’s relevant medical history supported the view that “she was of a mindset to put forward the worst of her mental health experiences in particular as entirely attributable to the accident” and noted that she had attended a gym for up to a year post-accident, which in the court’s view “was inconsistent with the level of physical discomfort she was complaining of at that time”.

Nonetheless, “even allowing for a margin of exaggeration by the plaintiff of her symptoms”, the court was satisfied from the medical evidence tendered that the plaintiff was no longer suffering from anxiety and depression at the time of the accident.

Mr Justice Ferriter considered that while the plaintiff was undoubtedly a poor candidate for the accident in terms of her psychological vulnerability, the “eggshell skull” rule required the defendant to take the plaintiff as he found her.

As to the defendant’s contention that the plaintiff could not recover for her “nervous shock” type symptoms where she was not exposed to any actual or threatened death of serious injury and where the event could not objectively be described as a terrifying or horrifying event, the court was satisfied that the plaintiff met the requirements of Kelly v Hennessy [1995] 3 IR 253.

The court explained “as some form of personal injury was foreseeable arising from the accident, the defendant cannot escape liability simply because the injuries in fact sustained (physical and mental) were much more significant than might reasonably have been expected”.

The judge was further satisfied that the test of causation was satisfied, in that the plaintiff would not have suffered symptoms consistent with PTSD from January 2018 onwards but for the accident, but that a range of external factors not properly referable to the accident contributed to the length and severity of her mental health symptoms.

In particular, the court considered that the plaintiff’s move from Tullow to Carlow at the end of 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic, her involvement in family law litigation which did not conclude until 2020, and her falling into rent arrears coupled with her landlord’s decision to sell her rented accommodation leading to her becoming homeless in 2023 were all factors leading to a significant deterioration in her condition.

Accordingly, the court concluded that damages would fall to be assessed on the basis that 50 per cent of the plaintiff’s psychiatric symptoms in the period from the accident to trial were attributable to the accident itself.

Having regard to the relevant case law on the principles applying to awards of damages in personal injuries cases and on the approach to multiple injuries cases, Mr Justice Ferriter determined that the plaintiff’s psychiatric injury was the most significant and assessed damages on a “pre-Guidelines basis” at €50,000 for past suffering and €10,000 for future suffering.

Having discounted that figure to €30,000 to take into account the contributing and exacerbating external factors not attributable to the accident, the court uplifted that figure by €35,000 for the plaintiff’s neck, shoulder and back injuries.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court awarded the plaintiff €65,000 in general damages, together with special damages and loss of earnings already agreed at €25,000.

Sykula v O’Reilly [2025] IEHC 638