The High Court has awarded a former factory worker €85,000 in general damages after finding that he was injured in a workplace fall caused by an unsafe system for clearing blockages on a bottle-making machine.
The judgment by Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon, delivered on 19 June 2018, also awarded €3,450 in agreed special damages, bringing the total to €88,450, plus costs on the High Court scale. The court refused a stay. It did not award a separate sum for past or future loss of earnings.
The plaintiff said the fall happened on 15 September 2010 while he was working for Glenpatrick Spring Water Company Limited. He told the court that a colleague asked him to clear a blockage on a machine while the colleague investigated a fault on another machine. He said he climbed onto the machine frame, lost his balance and fell backwards, landing on his coccyx and elbows.
The company disputed that the accident happened. It also argued that, if it did, the worker had acted against his training by climbing onto the machine instead of using a ladder, and had exaggerated his injuries. The company sought dismissal under section 26 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004, alleging that he had given false or misleading evidence knowingly.
The judge found that the accident occurred as the plaintiff described and that the unsafe system was reasonably foreseeable. She accepted engineering evidence that the machine lacked a safe means of access for clearing blockages by hand, creating a risk of entrapment. The court found that suitable equipment should have been provided to meet safety requirements.
The judgment records conflicting accounts about workplace reporting. The plaintiff and his wife said medical certificates were delivered to the factory after the accident; the court accepted their evidence. A company manager had said no accident report or medical certificates were received.
The court also rejected the allegation of fraud or deliberate exaggeration. The judge found the plaintiff credible and accepted medical evidence of continuing physical symptoms and depression. She said photographs and surveillance footage of him doing activities such as cutting wood did not establish that he could return to full-time work.
The judge said the plaintiff would be unable to work for at least a year from the date of judgment, with a return to employment dependent on receiving appropriate therapies. The award reflected pain and suffering to date and into the future, and the uncertainty of his recovery.