Morley v Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital Inc.

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 14 December 1967
• Date: 14 December 1967
• Court: Supreme Court

Supreme Court.

Morley v. Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital Incorporated.

ELIZABETH MORLEY

Plaintiff

and

EYE, EAR AND THROAT HOSPITAL INCORPORATEDDefendants (1).

Negligence - Invitor and invitee - Fall on stairway - Loose linoleum on step - Unusual danger - Knowledge of defect by invitee - Liability of invitor.

Appeal from the High Court.

The plaintiff claimed damages in the High Court for injuries which she had sustained as the result of the alleged negligence of the defendants, their servants and agents. At the hearing of the plaintiff's action before a judge and jury, the trial judge (McLoughlin J.) discharged the jury without verdict and gave the defendants judgment with costs on the grounds that the plaintiff had not establishedprima facie evidence that the defendants had been negligent. The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court. The facts have been summarised in the head-note and are stated fully in the judgment of Walsh J., post.

The plaintiff was an employee of a firm which cleaned the hospital buildings of the defendants under contract. In the course of her employment at the hospital the plaintiff was washing and polishing a stairway, which was covered with linoleum, when she caught her foot on a loose piece of linoleum on the stairway, fell, and sustained personal injuries. The plaintiff had noticed the particular piece, and other loose pieces, of linoleum on the stairway some weeks before her accident and alleged that she had made a complaint about them to a member of the hospital staff and had also mentioned the matter on a number of occasions to the hall porter of the hospital. The plaintiff said that at the moment of the accident she had forgotten the fact that the linoleum was loose. The plaintiff claimed damages in the High Court for the alleged negligence of the defendants and, at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case and on the application of counsel for the defendants, the trial judge withdrew the case from the jury on the ground that the jury could not reasonably hold that the defendants had been negligent because of the plaintiff's admission of her knowledge of the condition of the linoleum. On appeal by the plaintiff it was

Held by the Supreme Court ( Ó Dálaigh ó dálaigh C.J.; Haugh, Walsh, Budd and FitzGerald JJ.), allowing the appeal, 1, that the presence of loose linoleum on the stairway was an unusual danger.

2, That it was a matter for the jury to decide whether the plaintiff, with her knowledge, could have...