A nine-year-old girl has been awarded £9,000 damages for nervous shock she sustained on learning of her mother's injury and hospitalisation as the result of a road accident. The judge approved the settlement and ordered that it be invested in court funds until she is 18. Judge Patrick Smith was told in the Dublin Circuit Civil Court that Emma Redmond, of Balbutcher Lane, Ballymun, Dublin, had, prior to the accident, been a victim of a condition known as selective mutism.
The girl's counsel, Mr Feichin McDonagh, said the condition was one where a child was disinclined to talk to some members of its family while prepared to talk freely with others. Mr McDonagh said the child's mother, Mrs Noeleen Redmond, had been severely injured in an accident in December 1994 and had been treated in hospital for nine days. The girl had been only six at the time and the fear of losing her mother had exacerbated the selective mutism condition.
The child had thought her mother would die or that something bad would happen to her.
Mr McDonagh said the insurers of the motorist involved in the collision with Mrs Redmond had offered Emma £9,000 in settlement of her claim for damages for nervous shock and he was recommending it.