Supreme Court of Ireland Decisions

1. The plaintiff is the widow of the late James Furey who was killed in a traffic accident on the 8th May, 1998. She brought an action on her own behalf and on behalf of the other dependants of the late Mr. Furey against the defendant who was driving the vehicle with which the deceased’s vehicle collided. By order of the 14th July, 2000 the High Court (O Caoimh J.) held that both the defendant and the deceased had been negligent and the degrees of fault were apportioned at 20% against the defendant and 80% against the deceased Mr. Furey. Damages on the basis of full liability had been agreed in the amount of £247,000.00. The High Court granted the plaintiff a decree against the defendant in the sum of £49,400.00 to include the statutory sum payable in respect of mental distress.

2. The appeal relates solely to the question of liability.

3. On the 8th May, 2000 the plaintiff was driving his almost new Astra motor car at a place called Barrymore, Kiltoom, Athlone. This is on the main road between Athlone and Roscommon, about 5 miles from Athlone. The deceased had been driving towards Athlone. He was a Sergeant in the Defence Forces and he was returning, with two colleagues to his home in Cork from Donegal where he had partaken in the All Army Orienteering Championships. The accident in which he was killed occurred at the junction of the main road with a road leading to the Hodson Bay Hotel. The width of the road is 23 feet and 2 inches excluding the hard shoulders. The hard shoulder to the deceased’s left was 9 feet in width.

4. The defendant, Mr. Suckau was driving a Hymer camper van. He had been for some weeks on a touring holiday in Britain and Ireland and was experienced in driving on the left of the road. He had driven from Athlone and intended to turn right into the Hodson Bay complex.

5. The only eye witness testimony about the accident in which the deceased

6. Mr. Suckau said that he drove along the road from Athlone and saw the sign for the Hodson Bay complex, where he planned to go. He said:-

7. In relation to the accident itself he said that he saw the deceased’s car when it was about 50 metres away from the junction. It was being driven with “at least half of the width of the car over the centre line”. It was travelling at a very high speed, which he estimated at 130 - 140 kilometres an hour, or about 85 miles an hour. It drove at his vehicle without stopping, slowing down or swerving and struck it.

8. Substantially the same account was given by the defendant’s wife.

9. In cross-examination the defendant stated that he had allowed the cars to pass, had then looked into the junction with the hotel property and had next turned somewhat to the left to look in the Roscommon direction, at which point he saw the deceased’s car. A driver in the defendant’s position can see traffic 350 to 400 yards away, with a blind spot about 200 yards from the Hotel junction.

10. Both the defendant and his wife were adamant that their vehicle was stationary at the time of the impact, that it was on its correct side of the road though adjacent to the white line and that the oncoming vehicle was travelling at very high speed.

11. It is an unfortunate aspect of the case that, in cross-examination, no specific version of the accident was put to the defendant. Curiously, when his wife came to give evidence it was put to her, at Book II question 529:-

12. It is of course essential that the plaintiff’s case be put to the defendant so that he can comment on it. As will appear below, there was clearly scope for considerable comment on the suggestion made to the defendant’s wife. Furthermore no particular point of impact was ever suggested to the Defendant or his wife. The omission is significant having regard to the circumstantial evidence.

13. The circumstantial evidence was established by members of the Garda Síochána who attended the scene.

14. On their arrival the Astra vehicle was in the entrance of the roadway leading to the hotel, having gone over the Athlone side kerb of that road at a point more than 30 feet from its junction with the main road. The Hymer camper van was spun around so that it faced Athlone and ended up on the hard shoulder, on the left hand side looking towards Athlone with its front beside the Athlone side of the hotel road’s junction with the main road. All the glass and debris found by the guards were between the two vehicles, inside the mouth of the hotel road. This mouth was itself some 37 feet 6 inches wide i.e. considerably wider than the main road. Across the main road from it, there was another junction. There were also found scrape or gouge marks on the deceased’s side of the road, near the yellow line and roughly in line with the car’s eventual position. No one seems to have attributed much significance to these until after the hearing commenced.

15. Both vehicles were observed to be extensively damaged. The damage to the Astra was mainly on the front right hand side, the driver’s side, extending rearwards so that the entire frontal section had basically been crushed in the impact. The point of impact seems to have been on the right front corner of the vehicle. The camper van was 9 feet 4 inches wide and 21 feet 3 inches long. It was a left hand drive vehicle. The impact was from the passenger side of the vehicle across to the driver’s side. In the opinion of the public service vehicle inspector the impact happened on the driver’s right hand side, that is the passenger side of the vehicle. This accords with the defendant’s account. But the evidence became ambiguous, due I think to confusion between the driver’s right side and that of the vehicle. The next words are “Sorry, I think I have it the wrong way round” and later “The impact is actually from the left extending across to the right hand side”.

16. The learned trial judge’s fundamental findings were:-

17. On that basis the learned trial judge held that the “essential liability for the accident must rest with the deceased”. The learned trial judge then made the apportionment set out above, the 20% against the defendant being on account of his “failing to position his vehicle in the correct position on the road”.

18. The notice of appeal of the 3rd November, 2000 claimed that the learned trial judge had misconstrued the evidence of two of the garda witnesses and two experts. More specifically it challenged finding that the camper van was stationary at the time of the accident; that the accident happened near the centre of the road; that the camper van was occupying a portion of only about

19. The plaintiff naturally carries the onus of proof, and she had a manifest difficulty in this case arising from the absence of direct evidence on her side. Confronted with the evidence of two witnesses whose veracity was not in doubt, her case depended on a view of the circumstantial evidence which, on the balance of probability, established that the account of the defendant and his wife could not be true but that (in the words of the only specific case put to either of the eye witnesses) the defendant “drove across the road in front of this car when it was very close to (him) and caused the crash”.

20. In approaching the appeal the Court must apply the principles in Hay v. O’Grady [1992] IR 210. Having set out, at page 217 of the report in four numbered paragraphs the manner in which this Court should approach an appeal such as the present McCarthy J. concluded:-

21. In my view, the learned trial judge’s findings in relation to the excessive speed of the deceased’s vehicle were rationally open to him on the evidence and I am of the same view in relation to the findings in relation to the van being stationary and to the debris. I would not upset this aspect of the judgment. I am, however, more dubious about his findings in relation to the point of impact. He says:-

22. However, in addition to the arguments based on the location of the debris, Mr. Algar and Mr. O’Mahony gave further evidence on behalf of the plaintiff. This was to the effect that the post accident position of the vehicles, and particularly the camper van, was uniquely consistent with a point of impact much further on the deceased’s side road of the road than might otherwise be thought. This conclusion was hotly disputed by Mr. O’Brien, an engineer called on behalf of the defendant. I have to say that the evidence on each side of this important issue is somewhat vague. It is particularly hard to appreciate on a transcript because the engineers all engaged in illustration by hand movements, the making of sketches which have not been preserved for this Court, and the moving of objects about on the courtroom table which is equally inaccessible to us. The plaintiff’s experts core position was that a vehicle in the position of the camper van on the defendant’s account, if struck in the manner alleged, would have been propelled directly backwards and not spun around to 180 degrees and moved across the road. This was stated to be obvious to anyone with a school boy appreciation of physics. However, the defendant’s engineer said that it simply failed to take a number of factors into account including that the two vehicles merged with each other, the car being at one point under the front of the camper van causing the latter to rotate on its back wheels. It appears to me that the conflicting expert testimony was couched in terms of first principles. Ironically, one of the engineers expressed the confident view that computer simulation would support his position on this issue but neither he nor anyone else had attempted anything of the sort. The position of the learned trial judge was not assisted when he asked counsel whether they wished to make any submissions to be told that “It is an issue of fact for your Lordship to decide”. This Court has already in at least two written judgments, expressed the opinion that in personal injuries actions which are not straight forward the Court should be assisted by brief submissions from each side and reiterates that opinion now. It is also essential that all documents, including photographs and sketches which were before the trial Court should be available to the Court on the hearing of an appeal. This did not occur in the present case. This court was initially given only one set of photographs. During the hearing more were produced, but we never saw all that were before the High Court. Still worse, there were missing maps, including three which had been marked by witnesses during the hearing. It is obviously essential that all exhibits be preserved for an appeal.

23. However, on a perusal of the judgment it appears that this important dispute between the engineers was not considered at all. Nor was the possibly related matter of the scrape or gouge mark on the road. Since on the expert evidence for the plaintiff these might if accepted, be regarded as establishing of the proposition that the impact took place much further into the deceased’s carriageway than the other evidence suggested, this is a matter of importance. I am very conscious of the force of the point made by the learned trial judge that had the impact occurred close to the yellow lines one would expect the damage to the camper van to be on its left side. The significance of this depends on how one resolves the ambiguity in the PSV inspector’s evidence, set out above. This does not appear to have been addressed and indeed is easy to miss. This, combined with the unresolved dispute between the engineers, leads me to propose to set aside the Order of the High Court and remit the matter for retrial. This may not lead to a different result but in fairness to the Plaintiff, it is important that all relevant issues be properly considered.