Insurers' bid to dismiss fatal claim refused

THE SUPREME Court has refused a bid by the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) to have dismissed a claim brought against it over the death of a young Cork man whose body was found at the side of the road.

The three-judge court’s rejection of the bureau’s appeal on grounds including its lengthy delay means the parents and sister of Kieran O’Flynn (19) may proceed with their action against it and others over his death on the night of August 7th, 1999.

Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said this case and several other decisions showed the Supreme Court’s “ever increasing reluctance” to condone such procedural delays.

Mr O’Flynn’s body was found on the road near his home in Mallow, Co Cork, and there is a dispute over the circumstances of his death. It is believed he died as a result of being struck by a car, but there is a dispute over what car and what driver was responsible.

The family claim they expected Kieran to join the family joinery business which, at the time of his death, employed 19 people.

It is claimed Eamon O’Flynn, his father, lost interest in the business after his son’s death and it later closed.

The family’s claim is for damages for nervous shock and loss of earnings related to the expected involvement of Kieran in the family business.

Delivering the Supreme Court’s judgment, Mr Justice Kearns, with whom Ms Justice Susan Denham and Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman agreed, said the family had sued Pádraig Buckley and David Walsh, the drivers of separate motor vehicles alleged to have struck Mr O’Flynn, plus the MIBI.

It is claimed Mr Walsh (who was insured) hit Mr O’Flynn, who was lying on the roadway, sometime after Mr Buckley, driving a car owned by Aidan Horan, had come into contact with him.

The MIBI was a defendant for two reasons – because Mr Buckley was not insured to drive Mr Horan’s vehicle, and because Mr Buckley has pleaded that Mr O’Flynn was dead before Mr Buckley arrived at the scene, having been hit by an unidentified and untraced driver.

In preliminary claims, the MIBI argued that its agreement to compensate victims of incidents involving uninsured drivers did not allow it to be sued in the same proceedings in relation to an identified but uninsured offending driver, or in relation to an offending motorist neither identified nor traced.

The judge ruled the MIBI’s four-year delay in bringing its application to dismiss disentitled it to the relief sought.