The High Court dismissed Bernard Cronin’s personal injuries claim against Petrogas Group Limited, finding he had not proved on the balance of probabilities that he fell on a fuel spill at the company’s service station in Clonmel.
In a judgment delivered on 17 May 2019, Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon said the plaintiff was “not at all convincing” in relation to his claim. The court accepted the evidence of two service station employees and found their accounts compelling and reliable.
Mr Cronin’s case was that he called to the station on Dungarvan Road on 6 March 2015, bought €10 of fuel and slipped on oil or diesel while walking to pay. He said the spill covered the wheelchair access bay and that he injured his right knee and elbow. He sought damages, including aggravated damages. The judgment records that special damages of €2,400 had been agreed.
The defendant disputed that the incident occurred. Staff witnesses said they had not witnessed a fall and described the station’s procedure for containing spills and cleaning them with a green, flaky absorbent product called Adsorb. They said sawdust was not used at the premises. The court accepted the evidence of Adamus and Anne O’Brien, including that spills were generally near pumps rather than in parking bays.
The court also considered an MRI report dated 18 April 2015, which said there was very little surrounding bone marrow oedema, indicating the knee injury was “of some duration”. The judgment noted that Mr Cronin denied having a prior knee problem and had appeared at a later joint inspection using a walking stick.
The judgment records that the defence produced no incident report book, did not reply to the plaintiff’s solicitors’ correspondence and did not call relevant witnesses. The judge described this as poor litigation behaviour “to a fairly reprehensible degree”. She nevertheless found that the plaintiff had failed to establish his case.
The court excluded video evidence relating to a separate 2017 accident, ruling it irrelevant to this claim, and said it was disregarded entirely. The judge also noted that information about that later accident had been corrected before trial, though late in the process. The claim was dismissed.