Recent Contributory Negligence Case

gaf1983

Surprised this hasn't made a thread in After Hours yet, but there's a story in today's Evening Herald about a woman who suffered injuries when she fell while on a pub crawl on holidays in Greece. She has been awarded €27,000 in damages after winning her negligence action against Falcon Leisure Group (overseas) Limited, trading as JWT Holidays.

In the newspaper report there is no indication that the floor was slippy or there was any broken glass that contributed to her injuries.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan ruled that each party was 50pc responsible for the accident and because of this he reduced his award of €54,600 by half to €27,300.

I fail to see how the travel company was responsible for her injuries. In actual fact the case reminds me very much of the case of Raleigh v Irish Rail (2004), in which the plaintiff was hit by a train and lost a leg while lying drunkenly across a railway line between 3.30am and 4.30am. O’Donovan J in the High Court apportioned blame as follows: 85% with the plaintiff and 15% with the defendant. He summed up his reasons in his judgement as follows:

Furthermore, apart altogether from the obvious danger, he (the plaintiff) well knew that he was an unwelcome trespasser. Indeed, I was tempted to conclude that the plaintiff's conduct was so reprehensible that it negated any fault on the part of the defendants. However, on balance, I have decided that I must reflect the defendant's responsibility for failing to take appropriate steps to prevent trespass on the railway line which they must have known was taking place by an apportionment of fault, albeit small, against them. In all those circumstances, it seems to me that a reasonable apportionment of fault between the parties is that the plaintiff should be visited with 85% of the blame and the defendants with 15% thereof.

The ‘albeit small’ damages that Irish Rail had to pay out to the plaintiff in this case amounted to an award of €111,081, and came in for criticism from some elements of the media. However, in December 2006 the Supreme Court overturned this decision to award damages to the plaintiff.

I presume this was a High Court decision, the newspaper doesn't specify this. It will be interesting to see whether this decision is challenged and overturned.

Rhonda9000

gaf1983 wrote: »

Surprised this hasn't made a thread in After Hours yet, but there's a story in today's Evening Herald about a woman who suffered injuries when she fell while on a pub crawl on holidays in Greece. She has been awarded €27,000 in damages after winning her negligence action against Falcon Leisure Group (overseas) Limited, trading as JWT Holidays.

In the newspaper report there is no indication that the floor was slippy or there was any broken glass that contributed to her injuries.



I fail to see how the travel company was responsible for her injuries. In actual fact the case reminds me very much of the case of Raleigh v Irish Rail (2004), in which the plaintiff was hit by a train and lost a leg while lying drunkenly across a railway line between 3.30am and 4.30am. O’Donovan J in the High Court apportioned blame as follows: 85% with the plaintiff and 15% with the defendant. He summed up his reasons in his judgement as follows:



The ‘albeit small’ damages that Irish Rail had to pay out to the plaintiff in this case amounted to an award of €111,081, and came in for criticism from some elements of the media. However, in December 2006 the Supreme Court overturned this decision to award damages to the plaintiff.

I presume this was a High Court decision, the newspaper doesn't specify this. It will be interesting to see whether this decision is challenged and overturned.

Gilligan J is a judge of the High Court AFAIK. Since an appeal to the Supreme Court would be an expensive ordeal and 27,000 eurodollahs isn't the end of the world to Falcon Holidays, I think perhaps it's less likely to happen.

Was Raleigh cited in the case do you know? If the facts of that case genuinely do reflect Raleigh despite the reporting journalists perception of them, it would be great to see a successful appeal and future careless fault-shifting plaintiffs discouraged from this type of action.

gaf1983

Don't know if Raleigh was cited in the Falcon case, all I know about it is what I read in The Herald.

Rhonda9000

gaf1983 wrote: »

The Herald.

Danger

fliptzer

I read the same article and was astounded at the fact she got anything at all, granted the Herald didn’t go into minute detail but from my initial reading, as a lay person, it amazes me how silly people can be, contribute to (or are responsible for) to their own accident/injuries and then expect to get money out of it, thereby furthering the public’s view and practise of a growing ‘claim culture’ for big cash payouts.

Again as a lay person and discussing this case with friends and family we all thought she hadn’t a leg to stand on – if you pardon the pun.

Rhonda9000

I understand where the public perception comes from and at first glance the plaintiff seems entirely unmeritorious. Contributory negligence exists to cover cases where the court feels there is fault on both sides. Without it, some cases could see an extremely harsh outcome - when it didn't exist, if the plaintiff contributed even in the slightest / tiniest way and the defendant could prove this, the plaintiff could not recover at all. This is unsatisfactory if the injury was in essence caused 'entirely' by the defendant.

Whether the balance has been struck too far in favour a money grabbing plaintiff is a matter of discussion and probably won't be found in the Herald. In recently decided cases, the courts have come down much more strongly against careless plaintiffs.

Victor

How can a person who promotes a pub crawl to impressionable youngsters, encourage otherwise moderate drinkers (who may already have been drinking and therefore more susceptible to suggestion) using pressure tactics to binge drink, creating a mob mentality, etc. not take some of the responsibility?

fliptzer

Everybody knows what a pub crawl is and they can happen with or without somebody to organise them. Even when in my hay-day I used to partake I did so out of my own volition, as did everyone else, and there is a huge element of personal responsibility (if not totally).

Hypothetically if that happened in Temple Bar – a stag night from Cork up for a weekend decide on a pub crawl, organised by 2 blokes (Gary and Tom) and something similar happened whose fault is it?

1. The pub you had the accident in? Guess that depends on the state of the floor etc. Or, they shouldn’t have served alcohol to drunk people and if they didn’t they shouldn’t have allowed drunk people on the premises?

2. Gary and Tom for organising a pub crawl? And even if you were drunk at the time you still made the decision, under the influence of alcohol, to tag along which is still your choice.

Or possibly could it be…

3. Your own bloody fault for getting so twisted you caused your own accident?

I can see a stage where we could end up suing Gary and Tom for giving the Groom and very, very bad hangover and thereby ruining his big day.

Rhonda9000

Victor wrote: »

How can a person who promotes a pub crawl to impressionable youngsters, encourage otherwise moderate drinkers (who may already have been drinking and therefore more susceptible to suggestion) using pressure tactics to binge drink, creating a mob mentality, etc. not take some of the responsibility?

Personally speaking, commercialized piss-ups don't illicit much sympathy from me so if a court decides to impose liability there I don't find it difficult to swallow. Similarly if a court comes down harshly on some feckless plaintiff that should have known better etc. and I think -overall- this approach (getting people to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost) is probably more productive. The principles of contributory negligence as they currently stand seem satisfactory at 'punishing' both parties for their non-virtuous behaviour / enterprise.