The High Court has awarded Theresa Quinn €33,000 after finding that Topaz Energy Group Limited negligently failed to provide her with a portable panic alarm at the service station where she worked. The court found that the failure aggravated her post-traumatic stress disorder after she witnessed a customer being shot dead, because she could not safely summon help.
The judgment does not hold the employer responsible for the murder or for all of Quinn’s PTSD. The court accepted that the shooting was unforeseeable and that Quinn would have suffered a psychiatric illness from witnessing it. Her claim concerned the additional injury caused by her isolation and inability to raise the alarm discreetly.
Quinn was working at the deli counter of Topaz’s Caherdavin service station in Limerick on 22 February 2010. A gunman entered and shot bread delivery man Mr Treacy. Quinn’s colleague left the shop, and the static alarm was at the till, out of Quinn’s reach. She crawled to a nearby cloakroom for her mobile phone and called emergency services, fearing the gunman would hear her. Gardaí arrived within about five minutes after a customer called from the forecourt.
Topaz’s health and safety procedures contemplated portable alarms for all staff, and both parties’ security experts considered that a reasonable and practicable measure for this premises. But the written materials available at the shop were ambiguous, and the court accepted Quinn’s evidence that she had never been given an alarm or shown where to find or how to use one. The judge found it reasonable for her to believe alarms were intended for till staff who handled cash. The court held that Topaz breached its common law and statutory duties by failing to implement its procedures and provide basic instruction on the alarm.
Medical evidence described PTSD symptoms including flashbacks, panic attacks and agoraphobia. Quinn remained unable to go shopping alone. The court found that having to call for help by phone, while fearing the ringing might reveal her hiding place, substantially increased her terror and aggravated her injury. It assessed damages for that aggravation at €30,000, plus €3,000 in special damages. The judgment records that €7,000 in special damages, including past earnings loss, had been agreed; it does not explain the difference between that figure and the €3,000 included in the award.
The court made no general finding that every service station or retail worker must have a portable alarm. It said the outcome turned on the specific facts and the connection between Topaz’s failure to implement its procedures and the additional injury. As the judgment was delivered electronically, the parties were given two weeks to file written submissions on the terms of the final order, costs and other matters.