Coleman Legal LLP secures a €185,000 settlement in a cosmetic surgery negligence claim

A settlement of €185,000 was reached in a cosmetic surgery negligence claim in Ireland on behalf of a woman who was left with a serious defect following abdominoplasty and muscle repair surgery. The claim was brought against the private hospital where the surgery was carried out and was resolved in June 2026 without admission of liability.

Our client

Our client was thirty two years old at the time of the surgery. She went into a private hospital for an elective procedure, an abdominoplasty with muscle repair, expecting a straightforward operation and a straightforward recovery.

What happened

Our client underwent the tummy tuck and muscle repair surgery. She was left without a navel.

The consequences were psychological rather than physical. The outcome of the surgery affected how she felt about her own body and had a serious and lasting effect on her confidence and her sense of herself. It was her case that the standard of care she received fell short of what she could reasonably expect from the hospital.

How the claim was investigated

Rose Sweeney brought the claim against the private hospital. In a medical negligence claim in Ireland, the standard of care is measured by the test set out by the Supreme Court in Dunne v National Maternity Hospital [1989] IR 91: broadly, whether the treating clinician did something that no practitioner of equal specialism and skill, acting with ordinary care, would have done. Claims of this kind are not dealt with by the Injuries Resolution Board and proceed directly through the courts.

A consultant plastic surgeon was instructed to address the surgery itself and the outcome our client had been left with. A psychologist was instructed to set out the psychological effect the outcome had on her, which was the substance of her injury and needed to be evidenced as carefully as any physical one.

The outcome

The cosmetic surgery negligence claim was resolved in June 2026 by way of a settlement of €185,000, reached without admission of liability by the hospital. The settlement concluded the matter without our client having to give evidence at a contested hearing.

How Coleman Legal helped

Rose Sweeney handled this case from the first consultation. Our client had been hesitant about bringing a claim at all, and Rose worked at a pace our client was comfortable with and treated the case with the discretion it needed. She instructed the consultant plastic surgeon and the psychologist, made sure the psychological injury was put at the centre of the claim rather than treated as secondary, and dealt with the hospital so that our client did not have to.