McNamara v Electricity Supply Board

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: Supreme Court
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1975
• Docket Number: [1965. No. 1745 P.]
• Date: 01 January 1975

(S.C.)

McNamara

and

Electricity Supply Board

Child - Electricity Sub-station - Allurement - Adjoining housing estate - Damages - Statutory duty - Electricity Regulations, 1932 (S.R. O. No. 7), art. 30 -Factories Act, 1955 (No. 10), ss. 8, 71.

The defendants were the occupiers of an electricity sub-station in an urban area. The sub-station was surrounded by a chain-link wire fence on which were placed numerous notices which gave warning of danger. The defendants became aware of the fact that local children were in the habit of playing in the immediate vicinity of the sub-station and the defendants started to build a wall around the sub-station. In the course of the building of the wall, the defendants placed part of the fence close to the sub-station. The plaintiff, a boy aged 11 years, climbed the fence at this point and from the top of it reached the flat roof of the sub-station across a gap of less than three...