The High Court dismissed a woman’s personal injury claim against Wexford Wanderers Rugby Club after finding that she fell near the clubhouse decking, rather than at the car park location where she said a defect caused her injury.
The woman, Amy Walsh, said she fractured her right ankle after her foot went into a hole containing a large stone as she crossed the club car park shortly after midnight on 6 May 2012. She alleged the club had failed to maintain the area safely and that lighting was inadequate. The club disputed where she fell, denied there was a defect at either suggested location and argued that alcohol and a failure to take reasonable care contributed to the fall.
In a judgment delivered on 7 April 2017, Mr Justice Barr accepted evidence from two of Ms Walsh’s former friends that they found her on the ground in front of the clubhouse decking. Neither friend said she had seen the fall itself. The judge preferred their account to Ms Walsh’s evidence about the accident’s location. He noted that Ms Walsh made no complaint about the car park surface in the area where he found she had fallen.
The judge also accepted evidence that Ms Walsh had consumed a considerable quantity of alcohol before arriving at the club, and that she and her friends poured vodka into drinks in the club’s toilets. He described these matters as peripheral to liability, but relevant to her credibility. He found that lighting at the location identified by Ms Walsh was adequate.
The court separately considered photographs taken by Ms Walsh’s mother about a week after the accident, showing the area where Ms Walsh said she fell. The judge found no hole in the photographs and was not satisfied that the surface shown was unsafe or dangerous. He also said the engineer who later inspected the car park could not establish its condition on the night of the accident.
The judge said that even if he was wrong about where Ms Walsh fell, the photographs did not establish that her claimed accident area was unsafe. He dismissed the action. The judgment records no damages award.