High Court of Ireland Decisions

1. In this case the Plaintiff's claim can be summarised as follows. She said she resided with her aunt at her aunt's premises which is a flat and she said that it became necessary for her because of the defect in the door to go about the closing of the door behind her by putting her fingers around the edge of the door, giving it a sharp pull and allowing it to slam in the hope that she would have got her fingers out of the way in time in order to avoid an accident, but she says on the 20th February, 1991 when she was 15 years of age, she was sent on a message by her aunt. She tried to perform this manoeuvre but unfortunately her timing was wrong with the result that she lost the tip of the finger on her left hand which is shown in the photographs that have been submitted and particularly in photograph No. 4.

2. Now, the basis upon which the claim is put on behalf of the Plaintiff is as follows: It is said that the Corporation as the Housing Authority under the Housing Act, 1966 is fixed with the obligation of providing the tenant with a house that was reasonably fit for human habitation and because of the failure on the part of the Corporation to provide the house with a handle with which the tenant and their licensees could close the door with safety rendered the premises unfit for human habitation and it is put further on the basis that the Corporation had an additional obligation to keep the premises in a reasonable state of repair and since they had an obligation to carry out repairs of which they were aware they had an obligation to respond to the notification of this defect by attending at the premises and carrying out such repairs as were necessary, in particular in putting a handle on the door.

3. First of all, I am satisfied at the time when the flat was handed over to the Corporation this defect which has now been described was not present and that seemed to be manifested by the fact that there exists on the door of the premises as shown in the photographs produced by the Corporation the remains of what was obviously a knocker and it would appear to make sense to me that the Corporation, when they originally delivered up this apartment to the tenant would have provided it with the ordinary door furniture, which can take the form of a Yale lock, a letter box and some form of door knocker, which would also act as a pull in order to allow somebody leaving to pull the door shut behind them, and therefore, I am satisfied from this photograph that has been produced by the Corporation that was the condition of the flat originally but with the passage of time and I dare say use, that knocker became defective and it became necessary for Mrs Carroll and her invitees to close the door as she describes by using her key as a pulling mechanism.

4. Now, I am satisfied also that there would be an obligation on the part of the Corporation if they became aware of the fact that there was a defect in the door which made the tenant and their invitees necessary to expose themselves to the risk of injury. There was an obligation on the Corporation to attend to such a defect. However, I am not satisfied that the Corporation were ever made aware of any such defect and I believe that arises because of the fact Mrs. Carroll did not see it herself as anything in the nature of a problem. I accept with some reservation part of her evidence but accept the evidence of the way that she said that at one stage she got a friend of hers and a nearby neighbour to put a bolt on this door and I feel that if she had seen it a desirable or necessary in the interest of safety to have a knob on the door she would either have got in touch with the Corporation or indeed with her neighbour or some friend and ask them to put a knob on the door. I am not satisfied that she ever saw it as a problem herself. I am not satisfied she ever notified the Corporation, and therefore I find no evidence of negligence on the part of the Corporation in delivering the flat which was unfit for human habitation in the first instance, nor do I find any evidence of negligence in that they failed to respond to a legitimate complaint made in respect of the door. I want to go further in this case, I want to say this, even if I were to find that there was negligence on the part of the Corporation and a failure to comply with their obligations under the Housing Act, 1966 that I believe that that negligence would be overwhelmed and overtaken by the negligence on the part of Mrs. Carroll and on the part of the Plaintiff in this case in allowing the state of affairs to continue whereby presumably a number of times a day they would voluntarily expose themselves to what must have been a risk of injury in the slamming of the door when the remedy was available to them at little or no expense, to remedy the problem by fixing some sort of handle onto the door be it whatever so inexpensive, I am satisfied on the authority of Crowley v. AIB and on the Oyster Bank case whatever negligence there was on the Corporation if there was any in failing to make this door safe that negligence was overwhelmed and overtaken by the continued negligence on the part of the Plaintiff herself who was at that time 15 years of age, and if I may say so, a young lady of the world, and on the part of the tenant, Mrs. Carroll and her husband in failing to bring about the remedy that was readily available to them and accordingly for all of these reasons, in my view the Plaintiff's case fails.