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1. This is a claim for damages for personal injury sustained by the Plaintiff in the course of his employment with the Defendants at their factory premises at No.18, Castletown Estate, Leixlip, Co. Kildare on the 30th October, 1993.

2. The defence filed is a full denial of liability and the essential issues raised are:-

3. The Plaintiff's case is that he was at the material date a 24 year old maintenance fitter/mechanic in the employment of the Defendants at their builders yard at Leixlip. His job was to service machinery used by the Defendants who were a site development company, in the course of their business and to carry out any general maintenance repairs required in and about the said yard.

4. The accident, the subject matter of these proceedings, occurred on October 30th, 1993 at about 12.15. On the previous Thursday, Mr. K. Cafferkey, the Managing Director had a conversation with the Plaintiff concerning a welded repair to a trailer, the property of the Defendant company. The Plaintiff advised him that he had a friend who was a welder who would come in on the following Saturday and do the work. The Plaintiff says that the conversation went on to discuss the fact that an area of the builders yard immediately in front of a porta cabin was quite dark at night and that people could trip over objects in the yard and of the desirability of mounting a light on the porta cabin and that the result of the said conversation was that he was directed to have a pole welded to the front of the said porta cabin to which a spot light could be attached which would illuminate the area in question. The Plaintiff agreed to have the said work done by the same welder as was dealing with the trailer repair on the following Saturday. He is explicit in his recollection that Mr. Cafferkey told him to get this work done.

5. On the following Saturday his friend, Mr. Brian Kelly, a welder came on site. They carried out the repair to the trailer and thereafter set about erecting the said pole and attaching the light thereto. The Plaintiff found the said pole among the unused material in the yard and knew of the existence in the stores of an appropriate light to place thereon. After discussion with Mr. Kelly it was decided to weld the pole to the steel frame of the said porta-cabin. This point was about 7 to 8 feet above ground level. The Plaintiff's account thereafter is that he and Mr. Kelly sought out ladders but could find none and thereupon put a pallet on the forks of the forklift truck and raised it to an appropriate height to use as a trestle from which to work. Using the said platform the pole was welded to the top frame of the porter cabin, the Plaintiff holding the said pole while the welder welded it to the said steel frame. The next task involved attaching the light to the top of the pole which required both men and the welding torch to be brought onto the flat roof of the porta-cabin.

6. The Plaintiff came off the said platform, went down to the controls of the forklift and raised the welder and his actual torch and lead to roof level. He himself ascended to the roof level by means of climbing up the mast of the forklift truck. On arrival on the roof they found that the lead from the welding equipment to the actual torch was too short to enable them to reach the point at which the lamp had to be welded onto the pole and the Plaintiff went to descend with a view to lowering the said pallet, placing the welding gear on the pallet and raising it up to roof level, thereby getting over the problem of the length of the hose or cable of the welding torch. He descended by climbing down the mast of the forklift and in so doing as he went down he had one hand on a cross member of the mast when his foot slipped off the frame of the forklift and hit one of the controls of the forklift thereby causing the fork and pallet to descend trapping his hand and causing severe injury to it. The Plaintiff was hanging by his injured hand for some few minutes while his colleague, Mr. Kelly descended, got onto the forklift and raised the forks, thereby freeing his hand.

7. In relation to the first issue, namely, whether he was authorised to do the said work this is a matter of conflict. Mr. Cafferkey denies that the conversation took place and says that he never authorised the Plaintiff to erect the said lamp and that he did not hold the conversation related by the Plaintiff as of the Thursday afternoon. I accept the Plaintiff's version of that conversation. Mr. Cafferkey gave evidence before me and I am satisfied that no reliance whatsoever can be placed on his evidence in relation to that aspect of the case. To say the very least of his evidence he is a bad historian with a very imperfect recollection of the day in question. I will not go on to consider other alternatives quite patently available to me in the context of Mr. Cafferkey's evidence. The Plaintiff was undoubtedly, in my opinion, authorised to have the said lamp erected.

8. In relation to the questions to whether or not a ladder was available the Plaintiff's account is that he and Mr. Brady searched the yard and could not find one. Mr. Cafferkey's evidence is to the contrary that there were at least two ladders available but again I find his evidence to have the same infirmity as I have already recorded.

9. Finally, it is said by Mr. Cafferkey that he has never heard of a forklift truck with a pallet being used as a working platform. I am well aware from two previous cases in this Courtroom that such has been the practice in other cases involving store rooms where products were being put on racks and this was not an unusual method of either taking them off a rack or placing them on a rack for storage and I may add the use of the forklift had somewhat similar consequences as in this case.

10. I am therefore satisfied that the Plaintiff was authorised to do the work and that as a matter of probability there was no alternative means of doing it other than using the forklift.

11. I appreciate that the Plaintiff was a qualified fitter/mechanic used to dealing with machinery and should have appreciated that the use of the forklift and in particular the manner in which he had to descend from the roof to the ground on the forklift must have been patently dangerous.

12. In the circumstances the Defendants were guilty of a want of care for their employee's safety by failing to provide him with appropriate plant and equipment and that the Plaintiff employee was also guilty of contributing negligence and I apportion fault as to 85% against the Defendants and 15% as against the Plaintiff.

13. I now turn to consider the question of damages for the injuries sustained on the basis of full liability and the sum so ascertained will of course have to be apportioned in accordance with the findings in the next preceding paragraph.

14. The injuries sustained by the Plaintiff consisted of a crush injury to his dominant right hand. He lost the right ring finger below the bottom knuckle. He broke the adjoining two fingers and all knuckles. He was brought to St. James's Hospital and according to the medical report of Mr. Matt McHugh he had an almost complete amputation of the right ring and middle fingers. These were reattached. Unfortunately, the ring finger did not survive and was subsequently amputated completed. He was admitted to hospital some weeks later for a skin grafting procedure and subsequently had further surgery on the amputated stump of the right finger. He was still attending hospital as an out-patient some seven months after the accident.

15. Mr. McHugh notes that the tip of the stump of his ring finger is very tender and painful. The middle finger is very stiff and he cannot make a fist and there is a gap of one inch between the tip of that finger and the dismal palmer crease. He has lost a great deal of power of grip in his hand.

16. Functionally, he has lost the grip of his hand, he cannot fully steer a car, he has difficulty in using spanners, eating is a problem and he cannot do up his buttons, his zips or tie his shoe laces properly. In general, his hand is awkward and clumsy and he has not been able to return to his past-time of play pigeon shooting.

17. He says he finds simple things like eating, writing and lifting a pint in a pub embarrassing as he feels people are looking at him.

18. The phrase used by Mr. McHugh, a surgeon of long experience is that this is a dreadful injury.

19. He has given up being a fitter in the accepted sense of the word and is now mainly driving a van and doing light maintenance work on builders plant and machinery. In my opinion he has sustained:-