The High Court dismissed Elaine Newman’s occupiers’ liability action after finding she had not shown that Patrick and Marie Cogan failed to take reasonable care. Newman lost her right eye when glass from a door shattered into it at the defendants’ home in County Meath.
The injury happened on 22 June 2007. Newman had gone into the back of the house after having a cigarette outside. Her partner, Emmett Cogan, was following her carrying a bag of meat when he tripped over clutter in the porch and fell against a glass panel in the inner door. Newman had just closed the door and was still facing it. The panel shattered, and glass entered her right eye. The eye was later replaced with an artificial one.
The parties had agreed that damages, if payable, would be €200,000. The defendants did not dispute that Newman was a visitor at the property. Her claim was that the glass was unsuitable for a door where impacts could be expected. Both engineers who gave evidence said toughened glass would have been more resistant to impact and would fragment rather than break into shards.
The panel had been replaced around 2000 or 2001 by Patrick Cogan, who did not give evidence. Emmett Cogan’s uncontradicted evidence was that the door glass had broken several times during childhood games near the door. The judge accepted that a professional glazier working for reward would not have installed the type of glass used. However, he found the expert evidence did not establish that a reasonably competent householder doing a simple repair could not reasonably have believed the glass was suitable.
The judge said householders could not reasonably be expected to know technical glazing standards associated with building regulations for new construction or certain renovations. He concluded that finding the defendants liable would impose an artificial duty based on technical knowledge they could not be expected to have. Newman had therefore failed to demonstrate a breach of the occupiers’ duty of reasonable care, and the action was dismissed.