The High Court dismissed a woman’s personal injury claim arising from a fall while rock climbing at Dalkey Quarry in May 2012, finding that she was neither standing on nor fell from the ledge she identified.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Bernard J Barton on 23 June 2015, followed a hearing limited to liability. The parties had agreed the amount of damages and all other issues between them. They agreed that the defendant would be liable only if the court found the plaintiff fell from the ledge in the circumstances she described.
The plaintiff said she and other members of the group had climbed to a narrow ledge without being attached to a safety rope and were waiting there for the rope. She said she lost her footing and fell. A fellow group member, Rebecca Kinsella, broadly supported her account. The defendant’s case was that the group was at a lower assembly point and that the plaintiff fell from there.
The court considered photographs taken by engineers for both sides, along with witness testimony. It accepted evidence from the defendant’s instructors that the group would have assembled at the lower point and that the rope could be dropped there for attachment to each climber’s harness. The judge said the plaintiff’s injuries could also have resulted from a fall from that location, so the photographic evidence did not support her argument that the injuries were inconsistent with the defendant’s account.
The judge accepted that the plaintiff and Ms Kinsella were convinced of their recollections, but found them mistaken about where the fall occurred. He accepted the instructors’ evidence as more reliable and found it highly unlikely they would have allowed the group to gather, without safety ropes, on the ledge.
The court concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, the plaintiff was not standing on and did not fall from the ledge. Under the parties’ agreement, that finding meant there was no liability. The judge found the defendant was not negligent or in breach of duty and dismissed the claim.