The High Court found Dunnes Stores liable after an employee slipped on olive oil spilled at the Ilac Centre, ruling that the store had not adequately cordoned off the hazardous area. It rejected the company’s claim that the employee ignored warnings and found no contributory negligence.
Ms Justice Irvine said the oil spill posed a serious slip risk and that the store had a duty to prevent people from unwittingly entering the area. If a gap was left for cleaning staff, someone should have monitored it, she said.
The incident happened between 5pm and 6.30pm on 1 September 2006, when a display of olive oil bottles fell and broke. The employee said she was walking towards store manager Pat Tully when she slipped. She denied seeing barriers or warning signs, and denied that Tully warned her to stop.
Tully and another staff member, Mr Capper, said warning signs and barriers had been put in place and that Tully had twice warned the employee and gestured for her to stop. The judge rejected their accounts of the warnings and the cordon. She found that any signs were not in the employee’s line of sight and that the makeshift barriers did not make clear that the area was dangerous and out of bounds.
The employee fractured her left shoulder and later underwent two arthroscopic procedures. The injury left permanent movement restrictions, ongoing pain and difficulty with heavy or overhead work. She returned to work in April 2011 in a role without heavy lifting or pulling. The judge awarded €50,000 for general damages to date and €20,000 for future damages.
A separate issue concerned income-continuance payments made after the injury. The judge ruled that the payments, funded through an insurance policy arranged by Dunnes Stores for scheme members, fell within section 2 of the Civil Liability (Amendment) Act 1964 and must be deducted from the employee’s past loss-of-earnings claim. The judgment records a claimed net loss-of-earnings figure of €135,187.97, while noting that the parties might dispute it. The court invited them to agree the remaining special damages in light of its ruling. It did not set a final total for those damages, and rejected a claim for additional damages based on the possibility of continued employment after formal retirement.