The High Court awarded a former Fun Fitness worker €32,630.27 in damages for a wrist injury she sustained in a fall at the company’s children’s play centre in Sandyford in 2011.
Mr Justice Barr assessed damages on 10 February 2017 after the defendant company, which was in liquidation, did not appear. The court said the plaintiff had already obtained judgment in default. It had struck out the company’s defence in May 2016 for failure to comply with section 14(2) of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004, and ordered that damages be assessed. The judge said liability did not need to be determined at this hearing; the negligence allegations in the personal injuries summons were taken as proved.
The plaintiff was working part-time as a supervisor when a manager asked her to turn off the hand dryer in a disabled toilet. She slipped on water or another liquid and fell onto her outstretched left hand. The court heard that she attended St Michael’s Hospital, where X-rays showed no fracture, and later had physiotherapy for about a year.
A hand surgeon who examined her weeks after the accident recorded wrist tenderness and restricted movement, along with intermittent numbness and burning in her hand. He said the symptoms could indicate early carpal tunnel syndrome, but noted that the condition could arise independently of injury. A later specialist assessment found no measurable loss of function in the left hand. Nerve conduction tests showed mild carpal tunnel syndrome on the right and borderline results on the left. The plaintiff had not undergone the possible release operation discussed by the specialist.
The judge accepted that the plaintiff’s left wrist symptoms began within a reasonably short time of the accident and that the condition in that wrist was caused by it. He found the right wrist symptoms harder to explain because that wrist was not injured in the fall. The judge also accepted that the injury led her to give up the video production component of her college course, which required handling heavy equipment and limited her later employment options in video production and television work.
The award comprised €30,000 in general damages and €2,630.27 in special damages. The latter included net loss of earnings, fees paid to keep the company’s liquidation open, and GP fees.