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Compo claimant hits out at judge

Sue Monk, The Courier Mail, 25 July 2001

A woman awarded a compensation payout of almost $100,000 has hit out at a judge's comments that personal injury claims are out of control.

The woman received the payment last week when the Court of Appeal found a car crash led to her husband's depression and subsequent suicide three years after the accident.

Although the Court of Appeal's Justice James Thomas agreed with the decision, he said he feared the courts had created a creature which it could no longer control.

"In a compensation conscious community citizens look for others to blame, the incentive to recover from injury is reduced and self reliance becomes a scarce commodity," Justice Thomas said.

State Attorney General Rod Welford concurred with the judge's comments and said it was vital Australia's court system did not drift down the same path of "suing anything that moves".

But the woman, who did not want to be identified, said Justice Thomas and Mr Welford had no right to use her case as criticism of the system as a whole when they did not know what her husband had gone through after the 1995 accident.

"It's very sad that a judge - without hearing all the witnesses' statements without really understanding what people out there are going through - can say all these things," the woman said.

It feels like a personal attack on me that I was just out for the money, and he (Justice Thomas) really needs to come out of his ivory tower."

Last year Judge Michael Forde awarded $4,785 to the man's estate for his injuries and a further $97,785 to the widow. The insurance company's appeal against the award was last week dismissed.

The woman said her husband sustained whiplash injuries in the accident and afterwards suffered severe headaches and lost interest in everything including a new business.

"He was always a really outgoing, happy person, but after the accident it was a total turn around and he became really moody and s on anti depressants which weren't working," she said.

Justice Thomas declined to comment on the matter.

The woman's lawyer, Ian Brown form Carter Capner Lawyers, said the "compo cringe" culture which had developed among law-makers had created enormous difficulties for many Australians seeking compensation.