Boy who sued over swine f lu jab gets €1m damages
A BOY who claimed he developed a rare sleep disorder after being given a swine flu vaccine has received just over €1million in damages.
Benjamin Blackwell’s claim was taken as a test case for 80 further similar claims by children and young adults, who can now follow the same formula to settle their own legal actions.
Benjamin, who is aged 16, had claimed he contracted the sleep disorder narcolepsy and cataplexy, an associated muscle weakness, after he received the Pandemrix vaccine at national school when he was five years old.
In a judgment this week, High Court judge Kevin Cross said Benjamin’s case was settled on the basis that he would get half of the maximum damages he could have received if he had won every element of his case at a full trial.
The 50% discount took into account a risk that the case could also have been lost, leaving him with no compensation and a potentially massive legal bill.
Judge Cross said he had approved the 50% principle in November of last year, but that Benjamin’s legal team had then entered mediation with the defendants to decide the sum of damages to be awarded.
The sum suggested by the mediator was €990,000, with a further €25,000 if the offer was accepted within two months.
The judge said Benjamin’s legal team had now told him they believed the figure was too small and had asked the court to decide if the offer should be accepted.
Commenting on the settlement, Judge Cross said: ‘The group settlement of these cases by the parties under mediation as approved by this court is something to be warmly welcomed.’
He said the court should be slow to interfere with what the parties had agreed between them, and with the mediation process.
Analysing the sums of money which had been suggested, Judge Cross said that while they could have been higher, he could not find that the proposed amounts were irrational or outside the range of what was appropriate.
During Benjamin’s court hearing last year, his counsel had said the Blackwell family believed in vaccination and did not want their son’s case to be seen as anti-vaccine.
The High Court heard the teenager now has to take several naps a day, even at school where he sleeps on a mattress of the school prayer room. He cannot engage in sport and is exhausted every evening.
Through his mother Natalie Blackwell, Benjamin, from Fairyhouse Road, Ratoath, Co. Meath, had sued the Minister for Health, the HSE and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA (GSK), producer of the Pandemrix vaccine. GSK was previously given an indemnity by the State concerning any adverse reactions to the vaccine.
The teenager claimed he was administered the Pandemrix vaccine in February 2010 at his school. Soon after, he claimed, he suffered from headaches and a loud squealing in his head. His parents noted changes in his behaviour, including dramatic mood swings and him starting to fall asleep at odd times during the day.
It was claimed neither he nor his parents would have consented to the jab if they had known that Pandemrix had allegedly never been, or never been adequately, tested on children of his age.
By February 2010, an alternative swine flu vaccine, Celvapan, was available and was known by that date to be much safer than Pandemrix, it was alleged.
It was claimed there was an alleged failure by the minister and HSE to warn the family about the known or unknown risks and the potential consequences of receiving the vaccine.
The claims were denied.
Parents noted mood swings