The High Court awarded a butcher €60,422.96 in damages after finding that a 170kg empty drum struck him at work and injured his back. The court accepted that he later suffered a distressing episode of stroke-like symptoms linked to psychological causes, but disallowed most of his claimed loss of earnings.
The accident happened on 24 March 2011 at a meat-processing plant in Shillelagh, Co Wicklow. The plaintiff said a full drum, known as a “massage”, hit him while he was checking a docket. The defendants conceded liability for their employee’s negligence but disputed that the drum was full and challenged the injuries and special damages claimed.
Justice Barr preferred the evidence of the co-worker who was moving the drum. He accepted that it had come from the wash-room, where drums were empty, and that the co-worker was moving two at once. The judgment records that an empty drum weighed about 170kg, compared with about 694.5kg when full.
The court found that the plaintiff suffered injuries to facet joints in his mid and lower back. It accepted that he stopped working as a butcher at the end of January 2012 because of ongoing severe back pain, after continuing at work for about ten months following the accident. The judge also accepted that repeated inquiries from his employer about returning to work increased his stress and anxiety. The plaintiff’s stroke-like symptoms in April 2012 were diagnosed as a “pseudo-stroke”: investigations found no organic cause, and the court said he recovered within months.
The plaintiff claimed lost earnings through May 2016. The court disallowed the claim for 2013, when he was pursuing a business selling petroleum products, and for 2014 to 2016. It found he was fit for full-time work during the period he worked part-time as a chef in Kenmare, and that he had not shown he was unfit for his former work in later years. The court allowed his 2012 loss-of-earnings claim, subject to a deduction for recoverable benefits.
The award comprised €47,500 in general damages, €9,267.92 net loss of earnings and €3,655.04 in other special damages. The judgment was delivered on 21 July 2016.