Harford v Electricity Supply Board

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Ms. Justice Bronagh O'Hanlon
• Judgment Date: 02 June 2020
• Neutral Citation: [2020] IEHC 572
• Docket Number: [2017 No. 4712 P]
• Court: High Court
• Date: 02 June 2020

BETWEEN

WARREN HARFORD

PLAINTIFF

AND

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BOARD

DEFENDANT

[2020] IEHC 572

Bronagh O'Hanlon

[2017 No. 4712 P]

THE HIGH COURT

Personal injury – Damages – Negligence – Plaintiff seeking damages – Whether the defendant was guilty of negligence

Facts: The plaintiff, Mr Harford, a network technician employed by the defendant, the Electricity Supply Board, was instructed to repair a public light on Highfield Road, Rathgar, in the County of the City of Dublin. The plaintiff was directed to use an Ariadne ICIG machine furnished to him by the defendant on 14th December, 2014 instead of the usual “grumbler” machine which he used as a matter of practice in the past. In the course of his duties on that occasion the plaintiff who had not been trained in the use of this machine for the purpose of cable identification by virtue of the inadequacy and lack of suitability or safety of the said equipment, was exposed directly to a 10,000-kilovolt live cable. A personal injuries summons was issued on behalf of the plaintiff on 24th May, 2017 in which he pleaded that the defendant was guilty of negligence, breach of duty, breach of statutory duty and breach of contract in that the defendant failed to provide him with a safe system of work, a safe place of work and necessary and adequate equipment. The plaintiff’s claim was that by virtue of the failure of the Ariadne ICIG cable he was caused to handle and to be exposed to a 10,000 kilovolt electric cable, as a result of which he sustained a medically recognised psychiatric injury which was ongoing, although he did not sustain physical injuries in the incident. A full defence was delivered on 23rd January, 2018 denying the allegations pleaded. It was further argued damages were not awardable to the particular incident in that it was argued that the plaintiff’s injuries were too remote and were not reasonably foreseeable and causation issue was also argued. In open correspondence by letter dated 19th December, 2018 negligence was admitted, was claimed not to extend to matters relating reasonable foreseeability, causation or remoteness of the alleged personal injuries loss or damage. It was accepted in that letter by the defendant that the Ariadne equipment provided was unsafe and unsuitable and that the plaintiff was not trained in the use of that equipment. Nonetheless the nervous shock claim was strenuously defended.

Held by O’Hanlon J that the court had fully analysed the authorities and believed that the burden of proof had been discharged by the plaintiff and that he had proven beyond reasonable doubt his case. On the balance of probabilities, it was clearly demonstrated to the court that this was a reasonably foreseeable injury and the plaintiff came within the definition as set out in Kelly v Hennessy [1995] 3 I.R. 253. O’Hanlon J held that the plaintiff continued to suffer from recognisable psychiatric injury and his PTSD and/or depression were induced by the shock of his exposure to the 10,000 kilovolt cable. O’Hanlon J held that the defendant was and admitted that it was negligent. The plaintiff had proven to the court that he apprehended injury to himself. O’Hanlon J held that a duty of care not to cause reasonably foreseeable injury was owed by the defendant to the plaintiff.

O’Hanlon J held that the plaintiff was entitled to general damages in the sum of €80,000 plus items of special damages which were agreed in the sum of €3,107.30.

Damages awarded to plaintiff.

JUDGMENT of Ms. Justice Bronagh O'Hanlon delivered on the 2nd day of June, 2020

Background to the case and pleadings

1 The plaintiff, a 45-year-old network technician employed by the defendant, for the previous twenty years, was instructed to repair a public light on Highfield Road, Rathgar, in the County of the City of Dublin. The plaintiff was directed to use an Ariadne ICIG machine furnished to him by the defendant on 14th December, 2014 instead of the usual “grumbler” machine which he used as a matter of practice in the past.

2 In the course of his duties on that occasion the plaintiff who had not been trained in the use of this machine for the purpose of cable identification by virtue of the inadequacy and lack of suitability or safety of the said equipment, was exposed directly to a 10,000-kilovolt live cable.

3 A personal injuries summons was issued on behalf of the plaintiff on 24th May, 2017 in which he pleaded that the defendant was guilty of negligence, breach of duty, breach of statutory duty and breach of contract in that the defendants failed to provide him with a safe system of work, a safe place of work and necessary and adequate equipment. The plaintiff's claim was that by virtue of the failure of the Ariadne ICIG cable he was caused to handle and to be exposed to a 10,000 kilovolt electric cable, as a result of which he sustained a medically recognised psychiatric injury which is ongoing, although he did not sustain physical injuries in this incident.

4 A full defence was delivered on 23rd January, 2018 denying the allegations pleaded. It was further argued damages were not awardable to the particular incident in that it was argued that the plaintiff's injuries were too remote and were not reasonably foreseeable and causation issue was also argued.

5 In open correspondence by letter dated 19th December, 2018 negligence was admitted, was claimed not to extend to matters relating reasonable foreseeability, causation or remoteness of the alleged personal injuries loss or damage. It was accepted in that letter by the defendants that the Ariadne equipment provided was unsafe and unsuitable and that the plaintiff was not trained in the use of that equipment. Nonetheless the nervous shock claim was strenuously defended.

The plaintiff's evidence

6 The plaintiff attended South Lotts Road, Ringsend on 12th December, 2014 where his supervisor allocated him the day's work and dispatched him with his crew of two people. He was given the Ariadne machine referred to above, although he hadn't been trained in it and he had only seen it in use by one person prior to himself. He identified with reference to photographs, a switch box which he said basically had ten cables in it which were fused and which go in different directions to feed houses and estates. He had opened it, attached the Ariadne LCIG to it and reference was made to his seeking a trace on a cable at the lampstand where the fault had been reported and he put the tracer on the cable to identify the cable and the Ariadne equipment as applied to the cable was giving him a percentage reading of 28% which defied interpretation by him. He said that this machine was wrong and no matter what cable it was put on the signal went into every cable. He commenced stripping the cable and described how he opened it. The plaintiff described a complicated system to shut out the cable from the electricity supply as an MV cable is a 10,000-kilovolt cable which cannot be worked on live. He then continued to strip down the cable leaving three copper cores visible to confirm that he had the correct cable went as if to use his test lamps as readers of voltage to confirm same.

7 The plaintiff stood out of the hole and halfway out looked back, something caught his eye and did not look right so he went back into the hole felt around the cable and found three cores indicating to him that this was in fact a 10,000 kilovolt cable and the minute he realised that he got out of the excavated hole and rang his supervisor and the defendant company reported this as a P1 incident the highest classification of dangerous level of incident.

8 The plaintiff confirmed that if one sticks a test probe into a medium voltage 10,000 kilovolt cable it would burn a person explode or result in their death.

9 The plaintiff was upset at the investigation which occurred following the incident which had sought to blame him for having done something wrong and although he sought three changes to the statement in three respects, he was dissatisfied with the outcome of that. The Ariadne machine was withdrawn for use by network technicians and has not been used since the incident in question.

10 The plaintiff described how the cable was down to a wrap of paper around the individual core at the crucial point and that although he didn't think the cable looked right when he looked back he denied that at that stage he thought it was a three core cable but he went into the hole had a feel around the cable and then realised there were three cores and he was touching the cable when working with it and he had not scratched through the final piece of insultation and had realised on visual inspection that there were three cores. When the plaintiff looked back into the hole, he did not think at that stage that it was a three-core cable. The plaintiff agreed that if he had not left the hole to get his test lamps from his van, he would not have seen that the cable looked wrong and would have stuck the test probes into it and thereby have been electrocuted. He realised that it was a medium voltage cable and was shocked by what could have happened and that on visual inspection he realised he was handling the wrong cable but he said to get visual inspection he had to strip the cable which meant that his hands were on the cable at different stages of the process of cable identification. The effects of this incident on him as described in detail by him in court, are dealt with in the medical evidence of Dr. Fitzmaurice in particular.

Mrs. Harford's evidence

11 The plaintiff's wife gave evidence that prior to the incident she and her husband had a good marriage notwithstanding difficult life events concerning the loss of a baby and a health diagnosis in relation to another of their children. Mrs. Harford gave evidence of significant change in her husband following the incident and up to the date of hearing. Despite the help he sought...