The High Court found that a worker injured his back while moving an unsealed 50kg fertiliser bag at work and that his employers failed to adequately plan, monitor or supervise the task. The court awarded €30,000 in general damages, €3,000 in agreed special damages and €95,680 for past loss of earnings. It deferred the direction to pay and any costs decision until a hearing on 30 May 2024.
The plaintiff said he lifted the bag from a conveyor and moved it to a floor grid about one metre away. The defendants argued that the procedure was to cut an unsealed bag and tip its contents onto the floor. The judge accepted the plaintiff’s account, finding on the balance of probabilities that he injured his back while moving the bag on 15 April 2019.
The court found no task-specific risk assessment and concluded that the risk involved in shifting or lifting the bag had not been adequately managed. It held that the defendants breached their statutory duty under regulation 69 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, which requires employers to take appropriate measures to avoid the need for manual handling of loads by employees.
Although the bags carried a warning that two people were needed to lift them, the judge found that the narrow work area meant two employees could not move them there. The plaintiff was an experienced operative, but the court found he had not been trained in the defendants’ asserted safe method and had little opportunity to raise organisational concerns. It rejected the defendants’ claim of contributory negligence.
The court accepted medical evidence that the incident likely aggravated pre-existing degeneration in the plaintiff’s lower back. It found he had chronic pain that began with the incident, but did not attribute a later severe episode of pain in October 2023 to it. The judge also found that other circumstances and the plaintiff’s underlying condition meant he would probably have moved to more sedentary work after turning 61 in 2022. Applying a 25% reduction to the past earnings claim, the court awarded €95,680 for loss up to April 2024. It did not award future loss of earnings, finding that the plaintiff had not shown it was attributable to the incident.
The judgment states that the proposed payment of €128,680 is subject to a recoverable benefits certificate affecting part of the award. The court said it would hear counsel on 30 May 2024 about directing payment and any application for costs. The judgment does not record what happened at that later hearing.