The High Court has awarded €65,000 to a girl who suffered cuts and permanent scarring to her right hand when another skater’s blade passed over it at a temporary ice rink in Blanchardstown.
Ms Justice O’Hanlon found that Cool Running Events Limited had failed to take reasonable care in the rink’s safety and management. She said the accident was reasonably foreseeable in the circumstances. The judgment, delivered on 25 July 2018, records a finding that the defendant breached section 10 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
The girl was 10 at the time of the accident on 30 December 2015. Her case was that, as skaters moved towards the exit, another person bumped into her and she fell. A following skater then passed over her hand. She suffered lacerations to her right thumb, index and middle fingers, an ice burn to her thumb, and permanent, visible scarring.
The defendant denied liability. Its evidence was that 111 people were on the ice at the time and that the rink operated in line with Irish Rink Managers Association guidance. The company’s witness said marshals and stewards managed the exit, and that the injury was not caused by congestion.
The plaintiff’s engineer, Neil O’Carroll, gave evidence that congestion, limited exits and insufficient supervision contributed to the accident. The court preferred his evidence to that of the defendant’s engineer, while making clear it was not adopting Canadian or English standards as binding rules. It treated the safety principles and evidence about the rink’s circumstances as guidance in assessing the operator’s duty of care.
The judge found that only one ice marshal was on the rink when the accident happened, attending to another fall, and that there was no marshal at the accident location. She accepted the girl’s and her mother’s evidence that they had not seen or heard the safety video. The court also criticised the defendant’s casual approach to supervision and the absence of evidence from listed witnesses, including an ice marshal.
The court said the injury occurred when a third skater, unable to avoid the girl on the ground amid the crowding, passed over her hand. It found that the operator had not adequately accounted for varying skating ability, capacity and supervision in managing safe exits.
The award was €65,000 in damages. The judgment does not specify a separate award for the €500 in special damages mentioned in the submissions.