The Court of Appeal has set aside a €75,000 High Court award to Saundra O’Flynn, who lost the tip of her left ring finger in a self-closing door at the Oliver Plunkett bar in 2012. The court allowed the bar operator’s appeal, ruling that the evidence did not support the basis on which the High Court had found it liable.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Irvine on 21 July 2017, concerned an appeal by Cherry Hill Inns Limited, trading as the Oliver Plunkett Bar, against the High Court’s decision of 14 January 2016. That court had awarded Ms O’Flynn general damages of €75,000 and found no contributory negligence.
Ms O’Flynn was 64 when the injury occurred. She told the court she had passed through a door between the bar and an outdoor smoking area, then put her left hand behind her to restrain it. Her ring finger entered the recess on the hinged side and was crushed and severed. Her friends described the door closing very quickly. No witness saw the precise moment the injury happened.
The plaintiff’s engineer considered it highly probable that the door mechanism had malfunctioned or had been set to close faster than its recorded 5.5 seconds. The defendant’s engineer said the door complied with the applicable British Standard and that 5.5 seconds was satisfactory. The court noted that the plaintiff’s engineer had not given an opinion that a 5.5-second setting was unsafe or that the door should have been set to the maximum seven seconds.
The High Court had found that the door’s setting should account for the area immediately beyond it, where patrons might stop. The Court of Appeal said there was no evidence that Ms O’Flynn had been delayed or obstructed while passing through, nor expert evidence that the operator was required to allow more than 5.5 seconds. It also said the High Court had found liability on a theory that was not advanced in the pleadings, expert report or evidence at trial.
The appeal court concluded that the liability finding had to be set aside. It added that, even on the trial judge’s findings, Ms O’Flynn’s act of putting her hand blindly behind her into the hinged recess would have warranted a very substantial finding of contributory negligence. The judgment does not specify a revised damages award; it allows the appeal and overturns the High Court liability decision.