Hickey v Tipperary County Council

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 20 May 1931
• Date: 20 May 1931
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

[H. C., S. C., I.F.S.]

I.F.S.]

Hickey

and

Tipperary (S. R.) County Council

Cullen

and

Williams and Co., Ltd.

Unfenced quarry - Entry by County Council to obtain road materials with owner's consent - Owner of quarry also owner of surrounding lands - Owner's cow killed by falling into quarry - No obligation on County Council to fence quarry - Licensees -Applicability of the Public Authorities Protection Act, 1893 (56 57 Vict., c. 61), s. 1 (a) - Date from which statutory period runs - "Act done in . . . . execution of any . . . . public duty or authority" - Grand Jury (Ir.) Act, 1836 (6 7 Wm. 4, c. 116), s. 162 - Local Government (Ir.) Act, 1898 (61 62 Vict., c. 37), s. 12 - Local Government Act, 1925 (No. 5 of 1925), s. 32.

Injury to - Absence of rear light on vehicle after lighting-up time -Breach of statutory regulations - Civil action -Not of itself negligence.

Plaintiff purchased in the year 1926 a farm of land which included a large quarry. The quarry was open to the public road at one side, and was open at the time of the plaintiff's purchase, and had been worked for a number of years previously. The quarry was not at any point fenced from the plaintiff's surrounding lands. The County Council of the county within which the quarry was situated had taken stone from the quarry for the purpose of repairing roads for a number of years, but not continuously. Other persons had also been drawing stone from the quarry. There was no evidence as to how the quarry came originally to be opened, or for what period it had been worked, or by what authority the County Council originally entered it, i.e., whether by agreement or by authority of a Justice's order. The plaintiff agreed that the Council might enter and take from the East face of the quarry sufficient stone to repair certain specified roads in consideration of certain payments, the amount of which was not proved, but was stated to be small. On the 16th November, 1928, the plaintiff put some cows in a field overlooking the East face of the quarry, and one of them fell over the edge of the field into the quarry and was killed. The Council had been working at that face of the quarry during the previous year (1927). On the 5th February, 1929, the plaintiff issued a Civil Bill against the County Council, claiming 26 damages, whereof 25 was stated to be "for damages for that the defendant Council, by its agents, servants, and workmen, failed and neglected to fence...