The High Court dismissed Anita Cray’s claim for damages after she fractured her left ankle stepping from a beach access ramp at Malahide, County Dublin. The judgment, delivered by O’Neill J. on 29 January 2013, found it very unlikely that a concrete ledge caused her fall. The judge also concluded that, even if it had, Fingal County Council had not acted with reckless disregard, the threshold that applied to Ms Cray as a recreational user.
Ms Cray was walking on the beach with her sisters, Donna Kelly and Deirdre Cray, on 22 April 2009. She said she stepped from the end of a concrete ramp onto the sand, her left ankle turned and she fell. Afterward, the sisters found what they described as a jagged concrete ledge protruding from the ramp, lightly covered by sand.
The judge accepted that the sisters found a ledge about a foot below the ramp’s top and that it later became detached and was washed away by the sea. However, the evidence indicated that the sand level on the day of the accident was probably about 11 inches below the top of the ramp. The ledge would therefore have been close to the surface. The judge reasoned that Ms Cray’s normal step was likely to have landed well beyond it, probably around two feet from the ramp, and found it very unlikely the ledge caused the fall. The judgment instead considered that she may have misjudged the step’s depth and stumbled on the beach’s uneven sand. It found no fault by the council in that natural surface.
The court considered the council’s legal duty under section 4 of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1995. The plaintiff’s engineer had criticised the ramp construction, saying its shuttering should have extended further down into the sand. The council’s witnesses said the ramp was built on supports to let the sea pass beneath it and reduce exposure to its forces. The judge found that the council’s design objectives and the limited circumstances in which the ledge might pose a danger did not amount to a breach of duty, still less reckless disregard.
The court dismissed the action because Ms Cray had not established the required reckless disregard. The judgment’s alternative conclusion was that the council would not have breached its duty even if the ledge had caused the fall.