Woman is awarded €260k af ter losing kidney in botched op
Surgeon accused patient of fraud over her earnings
A WOMAN who lost a kidney after a botched operation has been accused of fraud by the surgeon who performed her surgery.
Fashion store owner Margaret Browne, 42, was awarded €260,000 by Mr Justice Anthony Barr who was asked to assess damages in the High Court yesterday.
The court heard the defendants in the case – surgeon Peter Van Geene and Mount Carmel Medical Group (Kilkenny), trading as Aut Even Hospital in Kilkenny, while admitting negligence, had highly contested aspects of her claim.
‘It was submitted that her loss of earnings claim...was entirely fraudulent,’ said the judge. ‘In these circumstances it was submitted that the plaintiff’s entire claim should be dismissed.’
The defendants accepted that she suffered a significant injury as result of the negligence of Mr Van Geene when carrying out the hysterectomy operation in April 2010, Judge Barr said.
During this operation, sutures were placed which blocked the ureter leading to her kidney.
They acknowledged that Ms Browne, from Co. Waterford, had a torrid time after that elective operation, which had followed a diagnosis of endometriosis.
The stitches had blocked her kidney for a month, and the incident culminated in the removal of her left kidney in April 2013. But they said she had gone on to make a reasonably good recovery.
The married mother-of-one set up her own online clothing business, called Sparkle Closet, in January 2014 and went on to set up a small fashion shop on the quay in Waterford.
This was open from January 2014 to July 2015, when she announced on Facebook that she was closing the shop ‘for health reasons and due to the economic climate’, the judge said.
The online business continued until November 2016. Ms Browne described it as a ‘hobby and a distraction’, and said that if she was not unwell, it would have succeeded as a business.
The defendants noted that she entered a dancing competition in 2015, although she did not compete due to a knee injury, and participated in a vigorous boxing exercise, shown on YouTube in early 2016, to promote a personal trainer and his gym.
The defendants concluded that she was no longer restricted in the work she could do by any ongoing effects of the kidney removal, the judge said.
And in relation to her loss of earnings claim, they said she had attempted to mislead the court by basing her claim on pre-accident earnings of €26,000 a year.
This brought her loss of earnings claim to €111,000, the court heard.
Ms Browne had said she had a contract for sales work with a gym company called The Kingfisher Club, and maintained this claim until the trial was at hearing. She then realised that ‘the game was up’ after her bank statements showed just one payment from the club of €961, defence counsel claimed.
During the trial, she switched her claim to a general award of damages based on loss of opportunity in the job market from 2010 until now.
The defendants said she had worked for the Kingfisher Club only for a very short period in 2009, possibly as little as a month, and had no contract to prove otherwise.
Ms Browne rejected this, insisting that she had a written contract, which she had searched her house for, but was unable to locate. She said she had left the company due to personal difficulties with her manager, and the fact she did not think they would be willing to let her have time off due to her health condition.
Judge Barr ruled that Ms Browne’s claim was probably brought in good faith, based on it being her only ‘normal full-time job’ in a series of short-term jobs, but that her legal advisers had realised during the trial that a general award for loss of job opportunity was more realistic.
‘I do not think that the plaintiff was abandoning a fraudulently based claim,’ he said.
Judge Barr concluded she was unable to work from April 2010 until the end of 2013, but he said that by 2 015 he was not satisfied that she was totally unfit for work as a result of her injuries.
However, he said Ms Browne’s kidney issues would rule her out of a number of jobs, and awarded her €30,000 for loss of opportunity. He awarded €185,000 in general damages for pain and suffering in the past and future. With the addition of medical costs and other expenses, he awarded her a total of just over €260,000.
Stitches blocked her kidney They said she tried to mislead court