The High Court awarded €65,000 to a security worker who was assaulted during an incident at a Westport hotel nightclub, and dismissed the patron’s separate claim against the hotel.
The linked cases arose from events at MOJO’s nightclub in the Castlecourt Hotel on the night of 11 and 12 November 2011. Domonikos Kalman Racz, a security worker, sued Thomas Higgins for assault. Higgins sued Castlecourt Hotel Limited, alleging that its staff had assaulted him and used excessive force.
Justice Costello found that hotel security staff had reasonable grounds to remove Higgins after his behaviour caused concern and he refused to go with the head of security to speak in a quieter area. The judge said the staff’s decision to act swiftly followed a separate altercation involving Higgins’s friend and a security worker. She rejected claims that staff used excessive force while escorting Higgins from the nightclub.
The court found that the situation escalated after the group fell in the hotel lobby. CCTV and witness evidence supported the finding that Higgins kicked and punched Racz as he tried to prevent Higgins returning upstairs. The judge found that Racz initially acted defensively, but that he threw at least one punch while restraining Higgins. She rejected Higgins’s account that security staff had assaulted him while removing him from the nightclub, and did not accept that he had been knocked unconscious.
The judge found that Higgins kicked Racz at least three times in the groin, injured his right hand and punched him on the head and arms. Racz’s thumb injury required a cast and later a splint, and the court accepted evidence that he experienced psychological distress after the incident. The judge said Racz and his family left Westport in January 2012 because of his fear following the incident. She awarded him €65,000 for pain and suffering, including the physical injury and psychological stress.
Higgins’s claim against the hotel was dismissed. The court found that he had not proved negligence, and accepted that the security staff were trained, licensed and responded reasonably to a changing and increasingly violent situation. The ruling addressed the two claims before the court; it did not determine any separate criminal proceedings.