Spurious personal injuries claim has to pay other side's costs

Wouldn't it be better to remove the shenanigans all together.
A No Fault, state run insurance scheme, whereby anyone who is injured in an accident can simply apply to the state for the help they need.
No court cases, no legal fees, no money for nothing.
If you need medical help, you get medical help for free. Physio, surgery, whatever.
If you need your house adapted, you get it adapted. If you need 24 hour care, you get 24 hour care.
No payouts, no money, no cash. Just the help you need, funded by the state.
If you cannot work at all, in any capacity, you get the disability pension, assistance with transport, etc.

So chancers like this guy, wouldn't bother, because they would be quickly assessed as needing no real assistance.

I'm always moved by people who have life changing accidents or failed medical procedures. They have to battle through the courts for a decade to get the help they obviously need.
Can we not just provide them with the help they need?
 
Allpartied said:
So chancers like this guy, wouldn't bother, because they would be quickly assessed as needing no real assistance.
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Utopian. But what happens when a genuinely injured party is assessed by the state under your suggested schema as having no need for assistance? Who adjudicates on that dispute?

The benefit of court (like it or loathe it), is that is provides an independent forum for disputing parties to hammer it out with the benefit of expert evidence if needed where an independent arbitrator will make a final decision on the facts.

The nearest thing to what you’re suggesting already exists in the form of the Injuries Board.
 

Something along these lines, maybe. It would still have an independent element, but the emphasis would be on assistance rather than payouts.

Accident Compensation Corporation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
 
This would certainly addressed the inherent inequality arising from whether your condition has a direct cause, or perhaps an insured cause or not.

If you end up with profound disabilities as a result of hospital negligence, you may well get a multi-million euro settlement to help to address your needs. If you end up with similarly profound disabilities as a result of acquiring MS or MND or various other conditions, you'll be left scratching round, begging the HSE for resources and getting a small grant from your local Council to fit a downstairs wet room, if you have space for it.

Should the fault really be the deciding factor?
 
peemac said:
or a nominal €100 awarded
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You realise that because they had already turned down an offer higher than the judge awarded, they don't get the 3,500, only their legal costs up to the point the offer was refused. So it'd be the same outcome if it was 100 awarded.
 
RedOnion said:
You realise that because they had already turned down an offer higher than the judge awarded, they don't get the 3,500, only their legal costs up to the point the offer was refused. So it'd be the same outcome if it was 100 awarded.
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Ah, I see that now. Judge restricted claim to legal costs only up to Nov last year.

That will cost her and her team a few Bob. Great outcome.
 
I hope he does end up paying Spar Artane legal costs? But will he? Does he have the funds to do so? It's a shame when there was CCTV that this case went anywhere. He should be given jail time for a exaggerated case _ a spurious case.
 
And another one.

"Four east European nationals who claimed €240,000 damages for personal injuries arising out of a car crash in Dublin, have been told by a judge he was satisfied the collision had been staged. Judge Cormac Quinn, in dismissing all of the cases and awarding legal costs totalling almost €80,000 against the claimants, said the court accepted that a car with four people in it had been driven to a predetermined site where it was to be rear ended by a hire car.

“The only logical conclusion this court can come to is that the two cars involved were brought to St Margaret’s Road, Finglas, where the accident was staged,” Judge Quinn said."



Hopefully they will now face a criminal charge.
 
CCTV is still surprisingly spotty and can often be very poor quality. It's odd that dashcams aren't standard in all new cars. They cost very little to install at time of manufacture/purchase but people are less likely to add them after. Strange too that insurance companies don't subsidise them.
 
Dashcams are a double edged sword. They can work against you as well as for you.
 
Would you vary your idea for cases where fault is found? Surely the courts are there not just to afford suitable compensation for the victim? They are also to ensure there are consequences for negligence, recklessness and malice, and to send a warning to others.
 
And the drivers of both cars should also be charged with dangerous driving. I won't hold my breath.
 
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