The High Court found that a driver who suffered serious back injuries in a 2017 road collision was solely responsible for the crash, concluding that it most likely happened on the other driver’s side of the road.
In a judgment delivered on 17 December 2020, Mr Justice Bernard Barton said the plaintiff had failed to prove his claim for damages against taxi driver Gerard Hanaphy. The court did not assess damages and said it would discuss the form of orders with counsel.
The collision happened on the evening of 30 January 2017 on Stockhole Lane, Cloughran, County Dublin. The plaintiff, James Thomas Ian Smith, was driving a Vauxhall Astra and Hanaphy was driving a Skoda Octavia. It was dark, the road was wet and the cars met on an unlit S-bend.
Smith suffered a fracture of the first lumbar vertebra and underwent surgery to stabilise it. The implant was removed in a later operation in July 2019. The judgment said he had made a good recovery. Liability, rather than the medical evidence, was the central dispute.
Each driver said he had been on his own side of the road and had no time to react. The judge said both gave credible evidence and appeared to believe their own accounts. But the road was about 6.4 metres wide and each car about 1.8 metres wide, leaving enough room for them to pass if both had stayed within their lanes. The judge concluded that at least one account of the vehicles’ positions was mistaken.
The court considered engineering evidence about the bend, vehicle damage, estimated speeds and where the cars came to rest. One engineer could not say where the collision most likely occurred. The defendant’s engineer considered it highly likely to have been on the defendant’s side. Accepting that evidence, the judge concluded that the collision most likely occurred there. He also found that both drivers were mistaken about where on the bend the impact happened.
Smith’s lawyer had asked the court to consider splitting responsibility equally if both cars were over the centre line. The judge said the relevant provision of the Civil Liability Act 1961 did not apply because he had found only Smith negligent. He concluded that Smith’s driving caused the collision and that he had not discharged his burden of proof.
The parties made submissions about damages without prejudice to the liability dispute. The defendant’s lawyer accepted that an award at the lower end of the High Court range was appropriate, while Smith’s lawyer proposed €75,000 to €100,000. The court made no damages assessment because of its liability finding.