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Beware ‘litigation fatigue’ warns Mrs Justice Baker

Court of Appeal judge Marie Baker has criticised the lack of a dedicated line in the High Court to deal with complex medical negligence issues.

She told a medical negligence conference that the lack of a specialised High Court list in the field is “highly undesirable”.

Mrs Justice Baker also criticised the debate around the recent Personal Injuries Commission report on damages as negative because it presents a so-called ‘litigation culture’ as if it were a bad thing.

She said some of the discourse seems to suggest a certain ‘litigation fatigue’.

However, the law of negligence and the rule that one is entitled to compensation is “as old as time’ Mrs Justice Baker declared.

“If you live in a society and a member of society injures you, it is part of being a citizen that you are restored, in so far as you can be, to the position you were in,” she told the Pathways to Progress Medico-Legal conference at Markree Castle in Sligo on 20 September 2018.

The conference, organised by Callan Tansey solicitors, heard several calls for a dedicated High Court route for complex medical negligence cases.

The firm’s managing partner Roger Murray criticised the casual use of the term ‘compo culture’ in debate and said recent medical injury events suggested more a culture of silence and indifference.