The High Court dismissed Mark Rodgers’s negligence claim against the company that owns the Balally Inn, finding that the violent assault in which he was injured outside the pub was not reasonably foreseeable.
Mr Justice Michael Peart delivered the judgment on 18 July 2012. He said the pub’s duty of care extended to patrons immediately outside its premises, but required it to take reasonable steps against risks that could be foreseen. The judge found there was no reliable evidence of a history of violence that should have alerted the pub’s management to a need for security staff that night.
The incident happened close to midnight on 28 October 2006, during a Halloween weekend fancy dress event. Mr Rodgers’s niece, Kerry Ann Pegman, said she was attacked outside a side door after giving a man a light for his cigarette. Mr Rodgers said he saw the attack and intervened. He was struck several times with a broken bottle and suffered serious injuries. The judgment records that Gardaí mobilised 32 officers to the scene.
Mr Rodgers argued that the pub knew or should have known that members of the group involved were troublemakers who had previously been barred and later allowed back. He said security should have been hired for the busy event. The pub disputed that account, saying the fight broke out suddenly outside on the pavement and that there had been no warning of trouble.
The judge considered conflicting testimony about whether Ms Pegman had been working that night, whether Mr Rodgers had been at the pub earlier, and whether the group had been barred. He said those disputes were not decisive. He was satisfied that Ms Pegman may honestly have believed some people had been barred, but found no evidence that the entire group, or the particular people who attacked the pair, had been barred. Garda evidence also did not support the claim that the premises had a reputation for frequent trouble.
The pub’s incident book for 2006 was not produced in court. The judge said its absence prevented the parties from seeing what it recorded, but did not warrant an adverse inference against the assistant manager’s evidence. He also said the pub had made an unsupported allegation in its defence that Mr Rodgers instigated the incident; that allegation was not pursued.
Mr Justice Peart described the violence as a spontaneous eruption that the pub could not reasonably have been expected to anticipate or prevent by hiring security. He dismissed the claim. The judgment determined the negligence claim against the pub; it did not identify or determine the criminal responsibility of those who carried out the assaults.