The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Margaret McGarr, who was injured when she fell down the stairs of a Dublin Bus double-decker in 2008. It upheld the trial judge’s dismissal of her negligence claim, finding no basis to overturn his assessment of the evidence or his conclusion that the bus operator had not breached its duty of care.
Ms McGarr was visiting Dublin from the UK and staying with relatives in Glasnevin. At about 8.30pm on 3 October 2008, she had paid her fare on a No. 19 bus and was climbing to the upper deck when she fell backwards. She said the bus gave a sudden jerk as it moved away from the stop. Another passenger described the movement as more pronounced than normal.
The trial judge, White J., viewed the bus’s CCTV footage and heard evidence from the parties’ engineers. He found that the bus’s movement was not violent. The Court of Appeal said the trial judge was entitled to prefer the defendant’s evidence, including analysis that only a fraction of a second passed between the bus beginning to move and Ms McGarr falling. The footage also showed that she was not holding either handrail at the moment she lost her balance.
Ms McGarr argued that the driver should have waited until passengers were secure, relying on the operator’s Driver’s Safety Handbook instruction: “Never move off until customers secure themselves”. She submitted that a passenger climbing the stairs could not be considered secure and that the driver should have ensured she had reached the upper deck before moving off.
The Court of Appeal rejected that proposed standard of care as unreasonable in the circumstances of ordinary bus travel. It said the driver was entitled to assume that an average, able-bodied adult would take reasonable care by using the visible handrails, while recognising that a greater duty might arise for a young unaccompanied child or a passenger with a physical impairment. The court said the duty did require the driver to avoid negligently causing the bus to lurch or jerk abruptly in a way that could knock a passenger holding a rail off balance. It upheld the finding that this had not happened.
The court distinguished an earlier case, Shelley-Morris v Bus Atha Cliath, where the trial judge had found that an abrupt movement caused the passenger’s fall and that she had been holding a handrail. In Ms McGarr’s case, the Court of Appeal said the bus had not moved violently or unusually abruptly and that she was not holding a rail. It concluded that there had been no breach of duty and dismissed the appeal.