The High Court dismissed Michael Kelly’s claim against Transdev Dublin Light Rail Limited and Transport Infrastructure Ireland over a serious hand injury at Dundrum Luas station, finding that the operators had not breached the duty they owed him as a trespasser under the Occupiers Liability Act 1995.
Mr Justice Hanna delivered judgment on 30 November 2018. The case concerned an accident on 20 October 2012, when Mr Kelly was trying to reach the eastbound platform. He had missed the signed pedestrian entrances and, after finding a lift apparently out of order, turned back near the railway bridge.
The judge found Mr Kelly climbed a grassy embankment to a locked gate leading to a service area, then climbed another locked gate. To get onto the platform, he used a block and the gate as footholds, grabbed the top of an adjacent fence and jumped down. His ring snagged on a rounded metal protrusion. The injury led to amputation of his left ring finger and lasting loss of hand function.
Mr Kelly argued that the fence protrusions created a danger and that the defendants should have anticipated someone trying to get onto the platform that way. The defendants submitted that he was a trespasser and that his own actions showed reckless disregard for his safety.
The court found Mr Kelly knew, or ought to have known, that he was using an unauthorised route. The judge accepted the defendants’ engineer’s evidence that the fence served both as a barrier to a construction site and as a security measure, and was appropriate for its setting. He was not persuaded that it was reasonably foreseeable that a would-be passenger would enter the platform by climbing the gates and fence, or that the protrusion would catch a finger in those circumstances.
The judge also found no evidence that the station’s directional signs were defective or insufficient, or that the apparently non-functioning lift created liability. Although the 1995 Act still imposed a duty toward Mr Kelly as a trespasser, the court found the defendants had neither intentionally injured him nor shown reckless disregard for his person. The claim was dismissed; the court made no award of damages to Mr Kelly.