The High Court has awarded Mark McGroarty €101,495 after he lost his left index finger in an accident while volunteering on building work at Cobh Golf Club.
In a judgment delivered on 28 October 2021, Ms Justice Niamh Hyland found the club’s trustees and carpenter Tony McKeown liable in negligence. The court awarded €100,000 in general damages for pain and suffering and €1,495 in special damages. It found McGroarty had not suffered loss of earnings and had not incurred significant counselling costs.
The accident happened on 5 June 2015, while McGroarty was helping McKeown install timber cladding on the club’s pro shop. McGroarty had no training in the work. He was holding a plank balanced on a milk crate while McKeown cut it with a circular saw. The saw struck McGroarty’s left hand. He was taken by helicopter to Cork University Hospital, where surgeons amputated his index finger and repaired a tendon in his middle finger.
Both engineering experts agreed McKeown was negligent: the plank should have been secured with a clamp or similar equipment, and a milk crate was an unsafe support. They also agreed the club was negligent in failing to provide suitable site supervision and a safe system of work. The judge found that a supervisor would have kept McGroarty, who lacked a construction safe pass, off the site. She treated McKeown’s actions as the club’s responsibility.
A central dispute was whether McGroarty could sue the club’s trustees as a former member of an unincorporated association. The defendants argued that he was a member when the accident occurred and could not sue fellow members through the trustees. The judge interpreted the club constitution as requiring subscriptions to be paid by 31 January, with membership deemed terminated if they were unpaid. McGroarty had paid €140 by that date toward a subscription of €869 for the year. Although the club commonly allowed late or instalment payments and had continued to treat him as a member, the judge found that practice did not amend the written rules. She also rejected a late waiver argument, finding no supporting evidence.
The judge said McGroarty’s injury caused severe pain and required two further operations. She also considered evidence of continuing pain, reduced hand strength and dexterity, anxiety and depression, and a substantial effect on his ability to play golf. The judgment records that he had returned to golf to a limited extent, but not at his former level.