The High Court has dismissed a sales assistant’s personal injury claim against Dunnes Stores over an accident at its Kilkenny city store, finding the incident was not reasonably foreseeable.
The worker was injured on 11 December 2013 while adjusting the height of a chair at an express checkout. She said the chair descended quickly and trapped the fingers of her right hand between its adjustment lever and a steel cashbox beside the workstation. Dunnes Stores accepted that the accident happened as she described, but denied negligence and pleaded contributory negligence.
The court first considered whether the chair examined by engineers in May 2015 was the one used in the accident. It accepted evidence from the store’s security manager that she removed the chair from the workstation about ten minutes after the incident and kept it out of use. The judge found it was the same chair. As both engineers considered it to be in proper working order, the court concluded that a defect in the chair had not caused the accident.
The cashbox was not working on the day because its doors were malfunctioning, but the court found that this did not affect how the accident occurred. It was fixed to a shelf and projected beyond its edge, allowing the worker’s hand to be above it if the chair was moved close to the shelving.
The judge accepted that the accident could have been avoided by placing the cashbox to the worker’s left, but said that would be a counsel of perfection made with hindsight. The court found the confined workstation was ergonomically designed for its checkout task and rejected the claim that its design was negligent.
The judge said entrapment required the chair to be positioned significantly off-centre to the right. The court considered evidence that neither the store’s HR manager nor the defendant’s engineer had encountered a similar accident, and that the worker knew of no comparable incident among colleagues. It also noted that checkout staff regularly adjusted the chairs.
Concluding that the accident was not reasonably foreseeable to an employer assessing the system of work, the High Court dismissed the claim. The judgment records no damages award or other order.