High Court says that Ombudsman should have had an oral hearing...

[Brendan Burgess]

An interesting case which may have implications for other cases.

A customer made a complaint under their insurance policy for €200,000
There was a conflict of evidence
The Ombudsman rejected the complaint.
The complainant appealed the decision to the High Court claiming that the Ombudsman should have held an oral hearing.
The High Court upheld the appeal and directed the Ombudsman to have an oral hearing

[broken link removed]

Mr Murphy then went on to state that an oral hearing should have been held by the ombudsman due to the conflicting evidence given by the engineer and the electrician, however the ombudsman pointed out that neither Mr Murphy or Allianz had requested this when the investigation was being carried out and it was too late to demand it now.


However the judge said that while the ombudsman’s decision could not easily be interfered with he would still set aside the ombudsman findings and send the case back to be reconsidered due to the fact that the reports by the electrician and engineer were in serious conflict with one another.