Country gone mad, example #58

[Bud Wiser]

Dur's a fella down the road from me here and he was lying on the broad of his back in Majorca one day soaking up the sun when the fella beside him realised he was Irish and asked him what he worked at and all that (he is a taxi driver)

In any case the talk came around to holidays and this lad, the one from down the road, was bragging that he goes on six holidays a year because he had a number of insurance claims for tripping over things and such.  D'other lad was surprised at all this and then the flute of a taxi driver tells him that,  when he goes home he has another six grand coming to him for hurting his ankle while dancing in his bare feet in the Red Cow.  Yer man asks him "well were you really hurted, did you break anything" and he sez,  it doesn't matter that I broke nothing I will still get six grand.

What he didn't know was the lad beside him was from the Red Cow and a friend of Tom Moran.  When the case came up all the other claims came out and the judge dismissed the case. Then Tom got a judgement against him for €120,000 for making a false claim, bringing bad publicity and loss of business to his premises and his barristers legal fees, and basicly he sued the bejaysus out of him.  At the time the clipe from down the road was well off and didn't really have to drive a taxi. Now he has to in order to keep the roof of a house over his head, da gobshite.

[Banana Man]

Dur's a fella down the road from me here and he was lying on the broad of his back in Majorca one day soaking up the sun when the fella beside him realised he was Irish and asked him what he worked at and all that (he is a taxi driver)

In any case the talk came around to holidays and this lad, the one from down the road, was bragging that he goes on six holidays a year because he had a number of insurance claims for tripping over things and such.  D'other lad was surprised at all this and then the flute of a taxi driver tells him that,  when he goes home he has another six grand coming to him for hurting his ankle while dancing in his bare feet in the Red Cow.  Yer man asks him "well were you really hurted, did you break anything" and he sez,  it doesn't matter that I broke nothing I will still get six grand.

What he didn't know was the lad beside him was from the Red Cow and a friend of Tom Moran.  When the case came up all the other claims came out and the judge dismissed the case. Then Tom got a judgement against him for €120,000 for making a false claim, bringing bad publicity and loss of business to his premises and his barristers legal fees, and basicly he sued the bejaysus out of him.  At the time the clipe from down the road was well off and didn't really have to drive a taxi. Now he has to in order to keep the roof of a house over his head, da gobshite.

good enough for the bollix

[Bud Wiser]

Aye, and he used to be going around with his chest stuck out bragging and then one evening he had a full page with a big picture of him in the Herald and now he is rightly bollixed. I remember one day he was walking out of the shopping centre and there is still a dangerous kind of grating that the council were supposed to plant a tree in and it sticks outa the ground and I sez to him, hey look there, you missed that one. 

[Doogie Browser]

Disgusting claim culture very evident, have heard of scumbags arranging car crashes just to line their pockets, scum.

[supersarsfields]

Disgusting claim culture very evident, have heard of scumbags arranging car crashes just to line their pockets, scum.

Unfortunately this is a regular enough occurrance. And it's getting worse now when people are tight for money. And it's the rest of us paying the price with higher insurance premiums!! 

[Bud Wiser]

I was having coffee in South Dublin County Council with the man that deals with claims there one morning and right outside the window a boyo was parking his motorbike and my friend sez to me, "see this clown going in now, well he is going in thinking he is collecting a cheque for driving over a broken manhole" and I sez shur I'll see you tomorrow if ye have to go now and he sez, not at all, watch him going out now in a minute again with a big red face and sure enough yer man got on his bike and fecked off.  What was after happening was it was the first time that Gas, Telecom, ESB, and all the utility companies had pooled together their database on repeat claimers and yer man was either as fond of the sun as the taxi driver above or he was woeful unfortunate altogether because he was after riding over about three of each of the other companies manhole covers.  They just gave him a list of his previous and advised that if he wasn't scared of being arrested he was welcome to contest the thing in court.

[lawnseed]

the claims in the south are much higher had this happened in nordyland the kid would have got about a hundred. then smyths would have got fined about 100 and been tortured by the hse for months afterwards which is worse than getting fined.

the rules say: firstly there must be a duty of care owed to the kid.... yes. then there must be a breach of duty of care.... yes/no. then there has to be proof that the breach of duty of care caused injury or loss.. this is where it gets grey there was no physical injury or loss, does a fear of loud noises constitute a loss- doubtful if someone had been hammering a nail in the shop would she be afraid of joiners. then there is the question of forseeable or unforeseeable circumstances has there been a history of bikes falling off shelves? are they tied or secured in any way? whats the accident or incident record of the shop. were risk assessments carried out and recorded and actively reviewed and amended.
      the worst thing about this case is that civil cases are based on 'precedent' ie what has gone before. since this is probably the first case of its kind this arsehole of a judge has set a precedent meaning that any similar cases in the future will pay at least the same or more allowing for inflation etc.. smyths will probably or have already paid out simply because this is useally the cheapest option but IMO it should be contested because its ridiculous

[tyssam5]

I have a 3 year old daughter. I struggle to get her to eat her dinner, go to bed, be nice to her brother and to stop drawing on the walls. The idea that a little kid of that age could be "coached" into something could only be suggested by someone who doesn't have or know someone of that age.
And did they just open up the golden paged to the Dodgy Psychologist section and get someone to aid them in their schemes?
In the last few days, fathers all over Ireland have given their daughters an extra hug or made an extra effort to play with them cause they have realised how fleeting the whole thing can be sometimes. If my daughter wasn't herself and was having bad dreams, you can be sure I would try to do something about it. Would that be taking a company to court? Maybe not. But I respect a fathers right to look out for his daughter.

That is a disgraceful parallel to attempt to draw.

Wise up gallsman.

+1

[Maguire01]

I have a 3 year old daughter. I struggle to get her to eat her dinner, go to bed, be nice to her brother and to stop drawing on the walls. The idea that a little kid of that age could be "coached" into something could only be suggested by someone who doesn't have or know someone of that age.
And did they just open up the golden paged to the Dodgy Psychologist section and get someone to aid them in their schemes?
In the last few days, fathers all over Ireland have given their daughters an extra hug or made an extra effort to play with them cause they have realised how fleeting the whole thing can be sometimes. If my daughter wasn't herself and was having bad dreams, you can be sure I would try to do something about it. Would that be taking a company to court? Maybe not. But I respect a fathers right to look out for his daughter.

That is a disgraceful parallel to attempt to draw.

Wise up gallsman.

+1

To be fair to gallsman, I thought it was inappropriate as well and had typed and then deleted a similar response before I posted it because I didn't want to highlight it.

[sammymaguire]

gallsman seems to be on some sort of gaaboard high horse mission at the moment!   

[Franko]

I have a 3 year old daughter. I struggle to get her to eat her dinner, go to bed, be nice to her brother and to stop drawing on the walls. The idea that a little kid of that age could be "coached" into something could only be suggested by someone who doesn't have or know someone of that age.
And did they just open up the golden paged to the Dodgy Psychologist section and get someone to aid them in their schemes?
In the last few days, fathers all over Ireland have given their daughters an extra hug or made an extra effort to play with them cause they have realised how fleeting the whole thing can be sometimes. If my daughter wasn't herself and was having bad dreams, you can be sure I would try to do something about it. Would that be taking a company to court? Maybe not. But I respect a fathers right to look out for his daughter.

That is a disgraceful parallel to attempt to draw.

Wise up gallsman.

+1

To be fair to gallsman, I thought it was inappropriate as well and had typed and then deleted a similar response before I posted it because I didn't want to highlight it.

Then possibly you should wise up too.

[Bogball XV]

there's a lot of people talking about a court case that they know very little about bar wee report in a newspaper.  Maybe we should take it that the judge was able to read the various expert reports and then assess him/herself whether or not the girl was coached or faking it or whatever?
The issue of compensation for the injury suffered is a different matter, imo the payment of €10,000 is pretty pointless, how is that going to rectify the situation unless that money is ringfenced for treatment for the girl's ailments?  A more fitting award would have been an undertaking by Smyths to provide whatever treatment nominated medical personnel prescribed for the girl, the thing is their insurance company would rather just pay out the few quid and be done with it.

It's the same for the two recent cases where children received huge payouts for very serious and debilitating injuries over the past few days here.  The HSE et al paid out 4.5m in one case and 650K in the other, in both of these cases imo it would have been more fitting to reduce the payouts substantially and for the state to undertake to give the two children the care they will require for the rest of their lives, but again, insurers (or presumably the HSE are self-insured) and management would rather make the payment now and be done with it.