The High Court dismissed a software engineer’s personal injuries claim against the organiser of the 2007 Oxygen Festival, finding that the ankle injury resulted from the actions of other festival-goers and that the organiser had taken reasonable care over ground conditions.
The plaintiff said he broke his ankle at about 7pm on 7 July 2007 while attending a concert in arena 1 at Punchestown, Co Kildare. He alleged negligence and breach of duty by MCD Productions Limited, which organised and managed the event.
The plaintiff told the court that he had been standing about 100 metres from the stage when he was knocked from behind, fell into the mud and was then kicked or trampled. His left Wellington boot remained stuck in the ground. His friend, Stephen Keane, was unsure how they fell, but described the underfoot conditions as very muddy. Both had been able to walk around the venue beforehand without slipping.
The plaintiff’s consulting engineer argued that more ground protection and treatment of hazardous areas should have been provided. The defendant’s witnesses described advance inspections, treatment of vulnerable areas, supplies of straw and woodchip, and safety teams monitoring the arenas. The judge accepted the defendant’s evidence about the precautions taken and found that the ground was muddy and slippery, but not as bad as the plaintiff’s witnesses had described.
Justice Irvine accepted that one or more festival-goers had suddenly knocked the plaintiff down and trampled over him. She rejected the suggestion that a crowd surge caused the fall. She was not satisfied that the mud or the boot being stuck caused the injury, observing that the plaintiff had maintained his footing until he was pushed and that the court had no medical evidence establishing that the trapped boot caused the fracture or made it worse.
The judge added that even if the boot’s retention in the mud had contributed to the injury, the claim would still fail. She found that the organiser had taken reasonable care before and during the festival to make the site reasonably safe and to monitor and address ground risks. The organiser was not an insurer against every injury at the event.
The court therefore found no negligence by MCD Productions and dismissed the claim. It separately assessed damages for completeness, in case the plaintiff had established liability: €40,000 for pain and suffering to the date of judgment and €20,000 for future pain and suffering. Those sums were hypothetical assessments, not damages awarded.