The High Court made no order against Dunnes Stores in a claim by a former employee who alleged she injured her neck and upper back lifting boxes at work on 26 January 2010.
In a judgment delivered on 14 April 2016, Mr Justice Twomey found that the plaintiff had not established, on the balance of probabilities, that her medical difficulties — particularly her back and neck problems, and stress and depression said to have resulted from them — were caused by an incident at the defendant’s premises. The judgment records no order against the defendant. It does not set out any separate finding on whether an act or omission by the employer caused an injury.
The plaintiff said she remained in pain and was taking medication. A consultant orthopaedic surgeon who examined her for the defendant in May 2011 described the injury as soft tissue and reported that she had made a full recovery, with full, pain-free movement in her spine and shoulder. He also said X-rays showed spinal changes that predated the alleged incident and were normal for her age.
The judge referred to inconsistencies in the plaintiff’s evidence, including her account of when she had received manual-handling training and the severity and timing of her pain. She said she experienced severe pain on the evening of the alleged incident but continued working until 9pm. She also accepted that she first told her GP about the workplace incident after returning from Poland, where she had undergone tests.
The court considered medical records and correspondence from early 2010. The earliest medical certificate produced to the court, dated 17 February, certified a week’s absence for stress. X-rays taken in Poland two days later showed age-related back problems, and a March MRI identified an ovarian abnormality that led to further investigation and treatment for ovarian cancer. A letter from the GP to Dunnes Stores on 22 March referred to degenerative spinal disease, scoliosis and disc herniation, but did not mention a soft-tissue injury or workplace accident. Later letters referred to back injury and occupational back pain without identifying a specific workplace incident.
There was no accident report, although a Dunnes Stores witness said employees were required to complete one after a workplace injury. The judgment also records that there were no eyewitnesses to the alleged incident. The court concluded that, given the evidence and the time that had passed, the plaintiff had become confused about the cause of her medical difficulties. It therefore made no order against the defendant.