• Read the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (Amendment) Act 2019  

Selected changes

The following are just some of its provisions relating to the processing of claims through the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) and practitioners should consider the whole Act.

• Section 51C is a new provision that provides that the Court may penalise claimants and respondents as to costs where they have not complied with a request made by the PIAB assessors for additional information or documents; to provide assistance to experts retained by the PIAB or furnish information or documents or co-operate with those experts; or for the claimant to submit himself or herself to a medical examination. Where the claim subsequently comes before the court, the judge may take such failure in to account and has discretion to deny the defaulting party an award of costs and order that the defaulting party pay all or portion of the other party’s costs. Section 51C applies to all applications made to PIAB under Section 11 after 3 April and all applications made before that date where PIAB has not previously made such requests.
• Section 13 (amended by section 2, 2019 Act) means that it is no longer essential to lodge a medical report with the application form in order to ‘stop the clock’ for the Statute of Limitations. From 3 April 2019, submitting Form A will suffice for that purpose. However, in such circumstances PIAB will serve “a preliminary notice” on the respondent and the formal Section 13 notice, which sets the 90 day period in motion, will not be served until a medical report is provided and the PIAB administration fee (currently €45) is paid.
• Section 50 (as amended by section 7, 2019 Act) resolves the anomaly identified in the case of Renehan v T & S Taverns [2015] IESC 8. The amendment provides that where a further respondent or respondents are added to an application which is already with the PIAB, the statutory limitation period for the claim against that respondent(s) stops for the purposes of Section 50 of the 2003 Act on the date of such addition as opposed to the date of the original application.
• Section 54 (as amended by section 9, 2019 Act) provides that the Book of Quantum must now be reviewed from time to time and revised at least every three years.
• Section 79 (as amended by section 14, 2019 Act) provides that the PIAB can now serve or issue documents electronically or by document exchange service, where consent to such service or issue is given.

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This article originally appeared in the March 2019 Law Society eZine. For more information, or to subscribe, see eNewsletters.