The High Court has dismissed Helen Stephenson’s personal injury claim against Sligo County Council over a fall on the steep access lane to Aughris Pier in March 2014.
Mr Justice Robert Haughton found that Ms Stephenson slipped on the lane, about 14 feet from the concrete apron at the pier, but was not satisfied that she fell on algae, biofilm, silt or another identifiable hazard. The court said her fall was also consistent with slipping on wet concrete on a steep incline.
Ms Stephenson was walking to the pier with her husband on a wet morning when she fell, striking her head and fracturing her left wrist. She said she had been walking carefully and reached towards the rock face as she lost her footing. Her husband witnessed the fall but neither of them inspected the surface or could say what caused her to slip.
The claim initially alleged that the council had failed to maintain and clear the access route, among other negligence claims. During the hearing, the court allowed an amendment alleging that the council had failed to install adequate drainage. The amendment was intended to support an argument that the council had positively carried out road works negligently, known as misfeasance.
The judge accepted that the lane was a public right of way under the council’s maintenance and control. However, he held that the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1995 did not govern the claim against the council in its capacity as a road authority. Under the common law rule considered in the judgment, the council could be liable for negligent work it had carried out, but not simply for failing to repair or maintain the road.
The court heard that council workers had resurfaced part of the lane in the 1960s or 1970s and, before 1985, had made a small patch repair incorporating a shallow drain about 12 to 14 feet from where Ms Stephenson fell. The judge found no evidence that the original resurfacing was negligently done by the standards of its time. He concluded that the short patch repair did not create a duty to install drainage along the lane. The alleged failures to clean the route or add further drainage were omissions, so the defence of nonfeasance applied.
The judge also found that, even if a drainage duty had arisen, the evidence did not establish that a defect created by the council caused the fall. He dismissed the action. The judgment does not record a damages award.