PLUMBER’S LEAKY CLAIM LANDS HIM IN HOT WATER

If you’ve ever wanted concrete evidence of what a dangerous cocktail stupidity and deviousness produces you should have a look at the facts in McKenna v. Dormer.

Leo McKenna was a forty-three-year-old plumber who injured his knee after he fell from a ladder on a building site in September of 2001.  At first glance, you’d have to admit that he had a legitimate personal injuries claim:  if a guy gets injured at work in the course of performing his duties, and he wasn’t doing anything crazy to cause the accident, he should be entitled to be compensated for his pain, suffering and financial loss.

But that wasn’t enough for our Leo, oh no.  Clearly when he does things, he doesn’t do ‘em in half measures.  So rather than simply claiming that he had experienced pain and suffering after sustaining an injury, he went on to claim loss of earnings against his employer on the basis that he wasn’t in a position to work for the best part of the entire decade following the incident.

A slight evidential difficulty that McKenna had in claiming nine-and-a-half years’ loss of earnings from his employer arose out of the fact that he had been in that self same employer’s continuous service for almost the entire of the period in question.

Apparently as his case was just about to begin in February he sidled up to his employer in the Four Courts and suggested to him “you have not seen me for the last 9½ years”.    (I’m not making this up!)  His employer said in evidence that his reaction to this was that McKenna “must have been joking” and that this was the first he knew of the loss of earnings aspect of the claim.

When it became obvious to McKenna after a bruising cross-examination that his cunning plan wasn’t going to work he sought to abandon his compensation claim and offered to pay the legal fees of both sides to bring proceedings to an end, but Mr Justice Quirke wasn’t hearing of it, stating that he wanted to proceed with an inquiry into whether McKenna had given false evidence.

Mr Justice Quirke ultimately dismissed the claim and awarded costs against Mr McKenna accepting, as a matter of probability, that he had given evidence he knew to be false and misleading and which was materially important to his case.  But that’s not where it ends for Leo.  The judge also directed that transcripts of the action should be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions “for his information”.  It will be interesting to see the DPP’s response.

The manner in which this issue was dealt with by the High Court is to be commended.  There had been a practice for far too long where try-on merchants were allowed to skulk away without being punished for their dishonesty provided they agreed to pay the legal costs of both sides once their game had been rumbled.

Unfortunately the actions of McKenna and others affect others than just themselves.  He will almost certainly now be used as a poster boy by the insurance industry to fuel the myth that claims fraud in this country is rampant.

Bogus claims like this attach a completely unjustified stigma to other entirely legitimate claimants, who should feel absolutely no shame whatsoever in seeking compensation for the injuries and losses which they have suffered as a consequence of the negligent acts of others.