The High Court assessed €15,000 in damages for a Garda dog handler’s hearing injury, finding that part of the permanent damage was caused by the State’s negligence and breaches of workplace noise regulations. The court attributed most of the damage to exposure before July 1990, for which the plaintiff had not established negligence or breach of duty.
In a judgment delivered on 18 January 2008, Mr Justice Quirke considered a claim by Thomas Donnelly, who had worked as a Garda dog handler since 1979. He said he had been exposed to loud, repeated barking while transporting dogs in Garda vans and claimed that this caused lasting hearing loss.
The court heard that dogs were transported in vans for patrols lasting up to six hours by day and seven hours at night. A Garda health and safety sergeant measured noise levels in two vehicles in 1999; the readings exceeded limits in the 1990 regulations in several respects. An engineer’s tests in 2005 recorded levels ranging from 65 to 110 decibels, depending on the vehicle and test conditions.
The judgment records that the State did not assess noise in the vehicles until December 1999, despite a regulatory duty to assess and, when necessary, measure workplace noise from July 1990. The court found the defendants in breach of that duty between July 1990 and December 1999. It also found breaches of Articles 4, 5 and 6 of the relevant European directive between July 1990 and the end of November 2001.
The judge found that the risk to the plaintiff’s hearing became readily foreseeable after the 1999 vehicle assessment. He also found that failure to take the required health and safety steps sooner breached the defendants’ common-law duty of care. The vehicles were fitted with bulkheads and insulation in July 2002; the plaintiff had obtained and used ear defenders after hearing damage was identified in 2001.
Medical and audiology evidence supported a finding of significant, permanent hearing damage related to noise exposure. However, the experts could not precisely quantify how much damage was attributable to noise or distinguish the effects of different periods of exposure. Taking account of the evidence and the court’s reliance on the Green Book, the judge concluded that most damage occurred between 1979 and July 1990. The additional damage attributable to the State’s negligence and regulatory breaches was likely comparatively small, but the court assessed compensation for that part at €15,000.