Accidents DO happen

What judge told woman suing over baby finger cut... and now she must pay costs

A WOMAN who sued Dunnes over a ‘nasty’ injury to her baby finger from a broken Dolmio jar has lost her case – and a judge said she probably picked up the glass after it fell.

Maria McDonagh will also have to pay costs.

Judge Gerald Keys told Ennis Circuit Civil Court: ‘It was a nasty injury but not that serious – unfortunately, accidents do happen.’

Ms McDonagh had claimed personal injuries and said she hurt her finger lifting the pasta sauce from a shelf at Dunnes Stores in Ennis on February 4, 2014. The 23-year-old said she had been shopping with her two-year-old nephew when she picked up the jar and ‘felt a sharp pain’ in her left-hand baby finger.

She said she let the jar fall but ‘out of reflex I tried to catch it’.

Asked if she did anything when the jar hit the floor, Ms McDonagh replied: ‘No, I just left it there.’

She said: ‘I was in shock. There was a load of blood.’

An ambulance crew arrived and advised her to go to hospital, but Ms McDonagh told the court: ‘They said the hospital was over the road and they didn’t see much point in bringing me there by ambulance.’

Asked about the impact of the injury, Ms McDonagh, of Bridge View, Ennis, said: ‘I do get sharp pins and needles up through it. I can’t straighten it – it is curved and I do twitch it now and again.’

Asked if she was conscious of the scar, she said: ‘Yes, I used to get my nails done often, but I don’t any more because I would be afraid of people looking at the scar.’

Counsel for Dunnes, Michael Collins BL, said store manager Alan Patterson would say that ‘you apologised for breaking the jar and that it slipped from your hand and smashed. There was nothing about the jar causing you a sharp pain.’ Ms McDonagh said she never had such a conversation. However, Mr Patterson said she had been feeling faint and apologised for breaking the jar. He said: ‘She told me that it had slipped from her hand.’

He said it was the following day, when he bumped into Ms McDonagh, that she claimed the jar was broken. Mr Collins said there was no sign of pasta sauce spilled on the shelf, which would have indicated that sauce had been seeping from the broken Dolmio jar.

Judge Keys dismissed Maria McDonagh’s action and found her injury was probably caused by picking up the glass debris after it fell from her hand. He told Ennis Circuit Civil Court: ‘The plaintiff has not discharged the onus of proof and can’t succeed.’

‘They said hospital was over the road’