The High Court has dismissed Margaret McGarr’s personal injuries action against Dublin Bus over a fall on a double-decker bus in 2008, finding that the operator was not negligent.
Mr Justice Michael White delivered judgment on 28 April 2015. The claim concerned a fall at 8.46pm on 3 October 2008, as Ms McGarr climbed the stairs on the No. 19 bus from Benevin towards the city. She alleged that a sudden movement as the bus pulled away caused her to fall backwards.
The court viewed footage from several bus cameras. It found that Ms McGarr was not holding a rail when she lost her balance. She had kept her ticket in her left hand and was carrying a shoulder bag. As she approached the top of the stairs, she let go of the right-hand rail to reach for the cross rail.
Ms McGarr and an independent witness, Eamon McEntee, described a sudden, violent jerk. The bus driver, Kenneth Martin, and the CCTV footage were relied on by Dublin Bus. The plaintiff’s engineer, Peter Johnson, said the bus’s position near a junction meant it would pull out to the right before proceeding straight. The defendant’s forensic accident investigator, David Land, estimated an interval of 0.16 to 0.3 seconds between the bus starting to move and the passenger falling.
The judge preferred the upper-deck CCTV footage. At the time Ms McGarr lost her balance, a passenger at the front of the upper deck was raising a can to his lips. The can did not move and no liquid spilled. The court found that the bus made a sudden movement as it pulled away, but that it was not violent.
The judgment considered the driver safety handbook’s direction to “never move off until customers secure themselves”. The court held that requiring a driver to ensure an upper-deck passenger was seated and had cleared the stairs before moving off would impose too high a standard of care, given that buses operate with one driver and passengers regularly move between decks.
The judge found that a sudden movement could have caused Ms McGarr to fall because she was not holding on, and that the stair rails provided safe ways to protect herself. The court found no negligence by Dublin Bus and dismissed the action. The judgment does not set out an award of damages or any other order.