Minchin and Another v Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Dublin

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: District Court (Ireland)
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1947
• Date: 01 January 1947

(Dist. Ct.),

Annie H. Minchin and A. J. Reddy, Appellants, and the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Dublin

Respondents

Fire precautions notice - Notice requiring proprietor of building to refrain absolutely from using building - Appeal to District Court - Wood carver carrying on his trade in basement, upper portion of house inhabited by several families - Whether building so occupied constitutes a "potentially dangerous building" - Practice - Fire Brigades Act, 1940 (No. 7 of 1940), ss. 1, 7.

In a four storied tenement house at No. 56 Lower Dominick Street there resided twenty-seven persons. In addition there was a basement occupied by a wood carver by hand carrying on his trade there. The refuse from the wood carving work consisted of chippings of wood (lumps of fairly hard timber) and a small quantity of saw-dust. No planing was ever done in the workshop, and no thin shavings of timber would at any time be deposited on the floor or in any part of the workshop. All refuse, the result of his work, was burned at the end of the day by the tradesman in a fireplace in the basement. He put out the fire every evening before leaving and made certain that everything was safe from the point of view of fire. The sanitary authority (Dublin Corporation) on the 12th day of June, 1947, pursuant to the Fire Brigades Act, 1940, s. 7 (2), served a fire precautions...