The High Court dismissed Edward Ronan’s personal injury claim against Tipperary County Council and his sister’s neighbour, Joanne Barrett, over a fall on a concrete ramp in Cahir in February 2015.
Mr Justice Twomey ruled on 11 June 2021 that Mr Ronan had not proved, on the balance of probabilities, that the accident happened as he described. He also concluded that, even if it had happened as claimed, Mr Ronan’s failure to keep a proper lookout and take reasonable care for his safety was the legal cause of the fall.
Mr Ronan said he injured his lower back when he tripped on the ramp while visiting his sister at No. 18 Dunesk at about 7pm. He sought damages for fractures, which he attributed to the fall. The defendants denied negligence and argued that he had sustained the back fractures in a fall down steps outside a pub in 2010.
The ramp was outside No. 17 Dunesk, a property owned by Ms Barrett. The council had taken a long-term lease of the house for social housing, but the ramp was outside the house and on a roadway that had not been taken into charge by the council.
The court heard that engineering evidence placed the ramp’s construction before October 2011. Mr Ronan visited his sister two or three times a week and generally approached her home on foot near the ramp, but said he first noticed it on the night he fell. The judge found the ramp was a substantial feature that a person looking where they were going could see, including at night, and found no evidence that the estate was poorly lit or that others had tripped there.
The judgment also recorded inconsistencies in Mr Ronan’s evidence, including about how he fell and whether he had met his own engineer or Ms Barrett. The judge said he treated Mr Ronan’s account with considerable caution and could not rely on it to establish the claim.
Ms Barrett denied building the ramp. The court accepted her evidence that she used a gently sloping “dished area” beside it to access the parking area at her home, and found on the balance of probabilities that she did not create the ramp. The judge said the evidence supported a finding that the ramp was useful to Mr Ronan’s sister, but did not decide whether she or her partner built it.
The court did not decide whether a landlord in the council’s position owed the public a duty of care over an area outside the leased premises. It expressed reservations about such a duty in these circumstances. The claim was dismissed, and costs were awarded to Ms Barrett and the council. The judgment noted that, because Mr Ronan was unemployed, the defendants might ultimately have to bear their own legal costs.