‘Five pints and a fall’ compo case goes for retrial

A MAN awarded €105,000 in compensation when he slipped on wet tiles in his council-rented home, after drinking five pints, now faces a retrial of his case.

The appeal court criticised the original trial judge for expressing his opinion, unsupported by evidence, that five pints was not a large amount of alcohol for a man who had worked in manual labouring jobs all his life.

It ordered a fresh hearing after saying High Court Judge Anthony Barr failed to address whether Thomas Keegan had taken reasonable care for his own safety.

Mr Keegan, 51, had sued Sligo County Council, the housing authority, following the accident, on his porch as he returned from a funeral. He fractured his ankle.

The appeal court said the judge also failed to analyse the conflicting accounts of his fall given by Mr Keegan, in which he first said he fell as he inserted his key, then before he put the key in, and finally as he turned the handle.

It was also unclear whether he fell onto his porch, or into his hall. ‘In my view, there are a number of matters which have been referred to in this judgment which make the trial unsatisfactory and which can only be put right by a retrial on the liability issue,’ said appeal court Judge Brian McGovern.

The council had appealed the High Court judgment, arguing that Mr Keegan had failed to take reasonable care, given the amount he had drunk. It said his account was ‘totally incredible’.

The High Court had heard that the accident happened at Mr Keegan’s house on McNeill Drive in Sligo on November 18, 2013.

As the unemployed ex-labourer left his house to go to a funeral, he noticed a rubber-backed mat, which he had placed on the exposed porch in front of the hall door, was extremely wet.

He hung it over his side gate and left. After the burial, he visited three pubs and drank five pints. When he got home, the mat had been removed by an unknown person. It had been raining and the tiles were wet, the court heard. Mr Keegan said that as he opened his front door, his left foot slipped on the tiles and he fell.

He crawled to his kitchen and called an ambulance. His ankle was fractured and he had surgery, with two plates and screws inserted into the broken bone.

Mr Keegan insisted that the five pints he drank had not ‘unduly affected him’.

Judge Barr said: ‘Having regard to the fact that this is a man who has worked in manual labouring jobs all his life, I decline to make any adverse finding against him having regard to the level of alcohol consumed by him that day.’

He said Mr Keegan could therefore not be held guilty of contributory negligence.

In his judgment in November 2017, Judge Barr awarded Mr Keegan compensation on the basis that the wrong type of porch tiles had been used.

The retrial is expected to be held within a reasonably short period of time.

His ankle was fractured