A woman whose car was involved in a collision on a roundabout with a vehicle driven by an American tourist has lost her High Court action for damages.
Mary Daly, who previously secured compensation totalling €129,000 over a workplace accident and an accident in a DIY store, had not shown an injury to her shoulder was caused by the roundabout incident, said Mr Justice Anthony Barr in his ruling.
The 51-year-old, described as a homemaker and mother of two from Bruff, Co Limerick, sued Ryans Investments Ltd, trading as Hertz, which owned the car driven by an American tourist.
The rental vehicle collided with Ms Daly’s car as she was exiting a roundabout to the Tipperary Road in Limerick on April 16th, 2016.
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The impact caused €4,000 in damage to her car. The defendant admitted liability for the collision but there remained a dispute over the cause of an injury to her right shoulder. Ms Daly claimed she sustained the injury as a result of the collision.
Mr Justice Barr said some two days after the accident, Ms Daly attended her GP with her mother who had been a passenger in the car on the day of the incident.
Ms Daly stated the primary purpose of the visit to the doctor was to have her mother examined as she had been very unwell and upset since the collision, said the judge.
Ms Daly said she mentioned her right shoulder pain to her GP that day and the doctor told her to take pain medication she had at home and see how she got on, said the judge.
The pain medication she had at home was related to an accident in 2001 when she slipped on the floor of a factory in which she worked at the time.
As a result of that accident she had surgery and also suffered bouts of lower back pain for which she was prescribed relatively strong painkilling medication. She brought proceedings over that incident and received compensation of €104,000, said the judge.
She also sued over a 2015 incident when she injured her right arm and wrist after a shelf in a B&Q shop fell on her. She received compensation of €25,000 for that.
She had also sued over a road traffic accident in 2003 but was unsuccessful in that.
The judge said it was accepted that a scan of her shoulder in February 2017 revealed significant inflammation, or supraspinatus tendinosis, with a partial tear in her right shoulder. It was also accepted by the medical experts that tears can arise spontaneously in the tendons in the shoulder without any trauma, he said.
The judge said Ms Daly did not mention to her GP any symptoms in her right shoulder for 10 months after the collision and that the scan also stated “no history of trauma”.
He said he must conclude that, on the balance of probabilities, the symptoms in her right shoulder were not caused by the roundabout collision.
He dismissed the case noting that the cost of the damage to her car had been discharged by the defendant’s insurers.
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