The High Court dismissed a personal injury claim against South Dublin County Council after finding that Michelle Walsh had not established, on the balance of probabilities, that the council was negligent in relation to her ankle injury.
Walsh claimed she tripped over a damaged sluice valve marker post on the public footpath at Woodford Villas, Clondalkin, shortly after midnight on or about 21 November 2004. She said she was walking with her brother and sister and fractured her ankle in the fall. The council’s defence denied the claim and included eight particulars of contributory negligence.
In evidence, Walsh said she left Bloomers public house shortly after midnight and was injured between 12.30am and 12.45am. The judge noted that ambulance records recorded a call-out at 1.57am and arrival at the scene at 2.19am. He found that Walsh’s answers did not adequately address the discrepancy. She also agreed that she had not responded when called for attention at the hospital at 5.30am, 5.45am and 6am.
The judgment records conflicting accounts of how Walsh described the incident to hospital staff. She denied telling a nurse that she had been pushed, and denied that she told another nurse she had stepped into a pothole. The judge described her hospital evidence as unsatisfactory and said it became apparent during cross-examination that she could not clearly identify where she had fallen.
The judge found the evidence of Walsh’s brother, Jonathan Walsh, wholly unreliable, saying he had been seriously intoxicated and could not have had a clear recollection of events. He also rejected the plaintiff’s engineer’s evidence as a “counsel of perfection”. He did not accept that the marker signs were a trap or hazard, noting the street lighting and that no other accident involving the signs had been reported.
The judge accepted evidence from witnesses for the council, including hospital and ambulance personnel and an engineer. He rejected Walsh’s evidence and that of her witnesses, concluding that she had not validated her affidavit of verification against the ambulance and hospital records. The judgment dismisses the claim; it does not award damages to Walsh.