The High Court dismissed a canteen worker’s personal injury claim over a cut to her left hand, finding that the knife sharpener she used had a fixed black guard attached.
In a judgment delivered on 26 June 2012, Mr Justice Gilligan said the plaintiff had not proved her pleaded case that the sharpener had no guard. The court did not decide the separate questions about whether she had received adequate training.
The plaintiff was employed by Sodexo Ireland Limited from about October 2008. She said she cut her hand while sharpening a knife at work on 29 June 2010. Her initial account, given in August 2010, said she could not remember how the cut happened. A letter from her solicitor later alleged that she had been instructed to use a sharpener without adequate training.
The personal injury proceedings, issued in February 2011, initially focused on the alleged lack of training. The judgment said the plaintiff’s side first raised the absence of a guard in June 2011. At trial, her account shifted to say she had used an older Furi sharpener with a silver looped guard, which she argued was inadequate.
The defendant’s witnesses said the kitchen had one sharpener at the time: a Furi model with a fixed black guard. The head chef said he saw the plaintiff after hearing her cry out and identified the sharpener she had been using. Another chef supported his account. A former second chef, called by the plaintiff, said an older sharpener with a silver looped guard was still in the kitchen. The judge found that witness mistaken, concluding the older machine had been discarded before the plaintiff began working there.
The judge said the plaintiff was probably confused about which sharpener she had used, noting that the accident had not been properly investigated. He nevertheless concluded that the black-guarded Furi sharpener was in use and was satisfactory for the kitchen. Because the pleaded case that there was no guard had not been established, he found it unnecessary to decide the training issues. The plaintiff’s case was dismissed.