'Bad blood' claimants reject Crown's compo

A multimillion-dollar legal battle is looming for the Government after victims of the hepatitis C bad blood scandal yesterday rejected its compensation offer, describing it as "a sham."

In two letters, one to the Crown Law Office and the other to Health Minister Annette King, the claimants' lawyers rejected the offer and said legal action against the Government would restart.

Any lawsuit is likely to cost millions of dollars. In the Budget, the Government listed contingent liabilities from hepatitis C legal claims at $90 million, up from $85 million last December.

Yesterday was the deadline for 77 people eligible for compensation after being infected with the potentially fatal liver disease between August 1990 and July 1992, when comprehensive blood screening was introduced.

Most of the 77 refused the offer of $40,000, plus $4000 towards legal costs. The offer, made in mid-April, was conditional on acceptance by all people, apart from 13 who took compensation from the National Government.

Last year, Labour gave a pre-election promise to hepatitis C protesters that it would give "fair and immediate" compensation if elected.

Yesterday's letters, signed by Wellington lawyer Roger Chapman, said hepatitis C claimants regarded the Government's offer "as a breach of faith" and "a sham."

Mr Chapman represents about 260 people who have hepatitis C or whose family members have died from the disease.

The letters also accuse the Government of rigging the compensation offer, particularly because the identity of one person was unknown and would make the whole offer invalid if she did not accept.

"Our clients believe - and the evidence supporting their belief seems to be overwhelming - that those terms ensured from the outset that no one (apart from the relatively small number of families of claimants who had already died) would be able to accept it," the letter to Annette King says.

"Many of our clients have expressed in the strongest terms their view that the offer was cynically designed purely to obtain favourable publicity, but without any serious intention of reaching a settlement."

Haemophilia Foundation vice-president Mike Mapperson said there was huge disillusionment and disappointment about the offer.

About half of the 260 involved in the legal case were haemophiliacs who became infected with bad blood, yet just three were eligible for compensation.

A spokeswoman for Annette King said she could not comment until she received notification from the claimants' lawyers.

- NZPA