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Runner who set marathon PB after fall is awarded €15,000

A mother of three who ran a personal best marathon time only five weeks after injuring her feet, knees and wrist in a fall while training has been awarded €15,000 damages against Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

Lisa Nagle (46), of Beechdale Way, Ballycullen, Dublin 24, was also awarded her costs which, together with the county council’s legal expenses, is likely to cost the local authority another €30,000.

Ms Nagle, an avid racer and club runner, told Judge John O’Connor in the Circuit Civil Court she had specifically trained hard for the 2015 Dublin Marathon in a bid to beat her previous best time of four hours and one minute in 2014.

Despite her injuries, she succeeded in clipping 13 minutes off her previous best, with 3hrs 48mins over the 26.2 miles just over a month after her accident.

She put her ability to clock that time – after having crashed to the ground in an early Sunday practise run with clubmates – down to an intensive five-week course of physiotherapy.

“I had trained so hard for that marathon and to improve my time,” she said.

Accomplishment

Counsel for the county council told Ms Nagle her time had improved quite incredibly to get below four hours and he described her race as “quite a considerable accomplishment” which she had posted on Facebook.

Ms Nagle said she suffered seriously with swollen and painful feet after the marathon and other races she had taken part in.

Judge O’Connor rejected a submission on behalf of the local authority that Ms Nagle had exaggerated her injuries. The judge said Ms Nagle had been truthful in court and had not been one to deliberately exaggerate her claim. Some of her evidence had not been as clear as one perhaps would like and she had come across as someone who had a lot of trauma in her life.

“Just because the plaintiff was a get-up-and-go person and ran marathons does not mean that her evidence is somehow exaggerated,” Judge O’Connor said. “Her get-up-and-go attitude is to be commended.”

Irish Independent

McSorley can’t pay €150 fine ‘until he starts new contract’

A court has heard that well-known actor Gerard McSorley will not be able to pay a €150 court fine until he gets a new acting contract in January.

The 69-year-old ‘Father Ted’ star, who has also appeared in a number of top movies, appeared yesterday at Letterkenny District Court, in Co Donegal.

An arrest warrant had been issued for McSorley after he failed to appear in court earlier this week.

Garda Inspector Sean Grant told the court McSorley had originally been arrested at Letterkenny Bus Station on November 27 after he was drunk and disorderly.

He was taken to Letterkenny garda station but continued to be abusive to officers and members of the public.

While in the cell he continually spat at the cell door which needed to be cleaned by a cleaning company at a cost of €50.

After he was released from custody, McSorley continued to be abusive and spat at a member of the public in the public area of the station and was rearrested.

McSorley, wearing a scarf and hat and using a walking stick, did not address the court. Instead, his solicitor Patsy Gallagher explained how his client was a very well-known actor with a “distinguished career”.

However, he said he had a number of issues including alcohol, mental health as well as medical issues.

He said he had spoken to his client, of Trinity Court, Newtowncunningham, and he estimated he had spent €80,000 on prescription tablets over the years to cope with his health issues.

He said on the evening in question he had been drinking and had been reminiscing about a number of lost colleagues.

The judge gave the accused six months to pay the fine and legal aid was granted in the case.

Irish Independent

American self-help guru Tony Robbins is suing US news website Buzzfeed for defamation in Dublin and is threatening similar proceedings against social media giant Twitter.

The case relates to articles detailing alleged sexual misconduct, which Mr Robbins vehemently denies.

Although Buzzfeed is headquartered in New York and most of its audience is in the US, the world famous life coach issued proceedings in the High Court in Dublin yesterday.

Mr Robbins’ solicitor Paul Tweed has defended his client’s decision to sue in Ireland.

“My client is entitled to have his name cleared. In my opinion the Irish courts are just as capable of making that determination as the English courts or the American courts,” said Mr Tweed.

He said Ireland would be the appropriate forum for both sets of proceedings as Twitter’s European headquarters is in Dublin.

“It is totally appropriate that we try to keep everything under one roof,” he said.

The defamation regime in Ireland is much stricter than the US and is also considered more plaintiff-friendly than the UK, making Dublin a prime location for so-called libel tourism.

Actors Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel previously chose to sue Heat magazine in Dublin, claiming they were defamed in its European edition, even though Ireland was not its biggest European market and it did not have editorial offices here.

Mr Tweed also acted in that case, which was settled.

Mr Robbins is not only aggrieved with Buzzfeed’s coverage, but the manner in which it has spread on social media platforms.

Mr Tweed said his firm had put Twitter “on notice” of a potential lawsuit.

Should Mr Robbins go ahead with such proceedings, it would set up an interesting legal showdown as social media companies have not previously been successfully sued in Ireland over the publication of defamatory material.

Twitter and Facebook’s position is that they are entitled to the benefit of the hosting immunity provided for under the EU’s e-Commerce Directive, which has been transposed into Irish law.

They also tend to rely on the innocent publication defence under the Defamation Act.

In a statement, Mr Tweed said: “We confirm that defamation proceedings have been issued on behalf of our client in the High Court in relation to a number of unfounded allegations published by Buzzfeed, with the intention of undermining our client’s hard-earned international reputation.

“Notwithstanding the full co-operation and extensive rebuttal evidence offered to Buzzfeed on behalf of our client and a significant number of witnesses, he has nonetheless been subjected to a persistent attack on his character over the course of a number of articles.

“Our client has therefore been left with no alternative but to seek the assistance of the courts here in Ireland and elsewhere as may be appropriate in the circumstances.”

A plenary summons issued against Buzzfeed UK Limited says Mr Robbins is seeking damages for defamation, malicious falsehood, misrepresentation, breach of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

He is also seeking an injunction under the Defamation Act, restraining Buzzfeed from publishing similar allegations again.

Buzzfeed has said it is “unequivocally” standing by its reporting, which it said was supported by hundreds of interviews, audio recordings, and documentary evidence. It also criticised Mr Robbins’ decision to sue it outside the US.

Speaking to Independent.ie, Mr Tweed defended his client’s decision to sue in Ireland.

“We believe Ireland is the appropriate jurisdiction to take these proceedings and we will, if necessary, be proceeding against Twitter in Dublin as well,” he said.

“As you know Tony Robbins’ books are available in all of the Dublin bookshops. He has given talks in Ireland.

“So he is a very well-known personality in Ireland and just as well known here as he would be in the UK.”

A Twitter spokesperson said it had no comment.

Online Editors

A woman has been awarded €54,000 over a heating oil spill from her neighbour’s tank which the High Court heard damaged her home and meant she had to find alternative accommodation for more than two years.

However, Tracey Davies,  of Dalkey Avenue, Dublin, may have to pay the legal costs of the case since April 2018 because the award falls short of a €75,000 lodgment made by her neighbour’s insurers to settle the case on that date.  

Where an award falls short of a lodgment, a plaintiff can be liable for her own and the defendant’s costs.

Mr Justice Charles Meenan will hear arguments on the matter next week from lawyers for both sides.

Ms Davies sued her neighbour Margaret O’Leary who lives in a house on a raised area behind Ms Davies’ home. 

Ms O’Leary, who was represented in court by her insurer, denied she was liable for damages as there had been a settlement for the costs of repairing her home and payments for alternative accommodation for Ms Davies and her family.

Awarding her €54, 204, made up of €12,500 general damages and €41, 704 special damages, Mr Justice Meenan rejected claims by Ms Davies that Ms O’Leary had deliberately lied to to her when Ms Davies approached her about the spill.

He said while Ms O’Leary had not been called to give evidence he was satisfied she had acted responsibly when she learned the leak was coming from her tank. She got the oil removed promptly and within a week had environmental experts hired by her (O’Leary’s) insurers in to examine the damage.

Ms Davies told the court the leak occurred one morning after they had been a lot of rain in  January 2013. When she rang Ms O’Leary’s intercom, she answered but did not open her gate.

Ms O’Leary said she did not have an oil leak but would get it checked, Ms Davies said.

Ms Davies later saw men apparently emptying the tank.

When she phoned Ms O’Leary, she said her neighbour again said there was no oil leak and the tank “is being emptied as a precaution.”

Ms Davies said within five minutes she got a phone call from Ms O’Leary’s son Jarlath who “reiterated there was no oil leaking and the emptying of the tank was solely precautionary.”

The court heard work to repair the oil damage required the ground floor to be cut up “like a piece of fudge” so the substructure would not be damaged.

Mr Justice  Meenan rejected Ms Davies’ claim for aggravated damages and said there was no basis for having included them in the statement of claim

He said she was entitled to two per cent interest on the special damages award.

Online Editors

Controversial landlord now ordered to pay back €22,000

A landlord who was previously in court for overcrowding a five-bedroom property with up to 70 people has been ordered to pay more than €22,000 in rent arrears and damages.

Christian Carter – younger brother of Cocoa Brown founder Marissa Carter – was ordered by the Residential Tenancies Board to pay €16,000 in rent arrears for a property in Stillorgan Heath.

He was also ordered by the RTB to pay €6,225 in damages due to the condition the property had been left in.

The landlord of the house had been renting it to Mr Carter, who in turn sublet it to a number of foreign nationals.

Following complaints from neighbours, the landlord sought to end the agreement.

The landlord – who lives outside Ireland – said she would inspect the property when in Dublin but was never aware how many people were living in her four-bedroom house.

“Sometimes when I came to inspect my house some bedroom doors were locked so I didn’t know who was living there. I then Googled his name and came across an article about him overcrowding houses,” the landlord told the Irish Independent.

The landlord – who wishes to remain anonymous – said she had not yet received the outstanding rent.

The RTB adjudication report states there was damage to the windows and blinds and a lot of rubbish left on the property.

Mr Carter did not respond to requests for comment.

He was previously brought before Dublin Circuit Civil Court after an Irish Independent investigation uncovered a house in Cabinteely overcrowded with up to 70 people.

Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council found almost every room they could access had been filled with either double or bunk beds, the court heard.

Irish Independent

Taxi driver convicted of stealing thousands of euro from passengers has licence revoked

A cab driver with a string of convictions for stealing thousands of euro from customers has had his taxi licence revoked.

Patrick Lyons (45) from Ventry Road in Cabra, received a two and a half year suspended sentence this month after pleading guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to withdrawing €550 from a customer’s bank account after keeping her bank card when she used it to pay her fare in December last year.

He also has a list of District Court convictions for theft from between December 2017 and August 2018 for similar offences.

In September last year he had appeared at the District Court on up to 24 counts of taking bank cards and cash from alleged victims who he had picked up as fares.

Lyons had previously stolen a customer’s iPhone in 2013 when the customer left it in his taxi.

He claims he has compensated his victims to a total of €4,300 arising from his convictions.

However he was still able to operate as a taxi driver because he appealed a move by Gardai to have his licence revoked.

He was back in the District Court today where his appeal against having his licence revoked was being heard.

Mr Lyons told the court that he became a taxi driver in 2000 while in his mid 20s. He is now 45 and has two children.

He said his life took a turn for the worst when his relationship with his partner broke down and he moved back in with his mother in Cabra.

“I was having seizures and I wasn’t working. I suffered from depression. I was staying in my room and watching telly,” he told the court.

“I started going to the local pub in Cabra to interact with people, my lifestyle wasn’t great. I got introduced to cocaine in the toilets,” he added.

Lyons told the court that he got into debt, and people started coming to his mother’s house saying someone he had introduced them to had ‘done a legger’ from the pub with cocaine they were buying, and the money they gave him for it, and that Lyons would have to pay them €700.

Mr Lyons said he was threatened. “They said they would do damage to me if I didn’t pay. I was afraid that I’d be shot,” he said.

Then he told how he started stealing from his taxi customers.

“I robbed things to get some of the money up. I stole credit cards from customers,” he explained, adding that he watched the customers insert their PIN numbers into the card reader and then used the cards two or three times to withdraw cash from ATMs.

“The first time was by accident, a woman left her card in the car. The rest I took on purpose,” he said.

“I was all over the place. I was constantly getting phone calls. I got beat up a few times,” he added.

Mr Lyons said the only way to get the people who were threatening him off his back was to pay them €10,000.

He said he borrowed €5,000 from his mother, €3,500 from a friend who he rented a taxi from, and came up with €1,500 himself and the debt was paid off in January this year.

He said his period of stealing lasted a year from December 2017 to December 2018.

He said he had now given up cocaine and alcohol and had taken part in a treatment course and was still doing counselling once a month.

“I have paid back all the money to the victims and I regularly see the probation officer,” Lyons explained.

His barrister Niamh Barry asked Lyons to tell the court how he thought his victims would have felt.

He told judge Michael Coghlan that he “wouldn’t like it done to me”.

“I shouldn’t have done what I done. I know that. I wasn’t in a right state of mind. I let my family down and I don’t want to let them down any more,” he said.

“It’ll never happen again if I get one more chance,” he added while close to tears.

Superintendent Tom Murphy of the garda roads policing division put it to Lyons that he had a “long history” with his office.

“You have made promises before and given undertakings,” he said.

He told judge Coghlan that Lyons’s latest conviction was at the Circuit Court on November 6 where he was given a two and a half year suspended sentence for theft from a passenger.

“I won’t do it again. I know I done wrong, I’ve changed,” said Mr Lyons.

“I put it to you that you haven’t changed,” said Supt Murphy.

Judge Coghlan refused Lyons’s appeal, meaning he is stripped of his taxi licence.

“My difficulty is I wouldn’t be satisfied that an independent party getting into a taxi would not be putting themselves in danger given the background this man has with undesirable elements,” he said.

He added that having a licence to drive a taxi is not a right but a privilege.

Lyons’s barrister tried to have a stay put on the revoking of the licence until after Christmas, but this was refused.

Irish Independent

A young girl who fell and cut her knee as she walked on the boardwalk beside a funfair ride has settled her High Court action for €80,000.

Leah Bonner was 10 years old when she tripped and fell near the waltzer ride at a fairground in Dungloe, Co Donegal.

She suffered a laceration to her knee and the High Court heard on Monday she has been left with a six inch scar.

Leah Bonner, now aged 12, of Gweedore Road, Dungloe, Co Donegal had taken the case through her father, Keith Bonner. She sued the fairground operator, John Ritchie trading as McGurks Funfair, Ballymena, Co Antrim, and David Thompson, trading as JJ and DH Thompson of Glasgow, Scotland which owned the waltzer ride, as a result of the fall two years ago.

It was claimed there was an alleged failure to provide any adequate lighting around the waltzer ride and an alleged failure to ensure that wooden slats on the boardwalk did not act as tripping hazards to those using it.

The claims were denied.

Leah’s counsel Declan McHugh BL said on August 5th, 2017 the child tripped on a wooden path and caught her knee on another. She suffered a severe laceration across her left knee and was brought by ambulance to hospital. She was in hospital for five days and had to use crutches for a number of weeks afterwards,

Approving the settlement Mr Justice Garrett Simons said it was an unfortunate incident at a fairground and the girl had been left with a scar.

irishtimes.com

A landlord who was previously in court for overcrowding a five-bedroom property with up to 70 people has been ordered to pay more than €22,000 in rent arrears and damages.

Christian Carter – younger brother of Cocoa Brown founder Marissa Carter – was ordered by the Residential Tenancies Board to pay €16,000 in rent arrears for a property in Stillorgan Heath.

He was also ordered by the RTB to pay €6,225 in damages due to the condition the property had been left in.

The landlord of the house had been renting it to Mr Carter, who in turn sublet it to a number of foreign nationals.

independent.ie for full story

HSE says sorry over brain-dead mother kept alive for weeks

Further substantial damages awards are expected to be made early next year in favour of relatives of a pregnant woman who say they were subjected to “a nightmare” after she was kept on a life-support machine despite being clinically brain-dead.

Mother-of-two Natasha Perie (26) was kept alive artificially for four weeks in 2014 because of erroneous concerns that ending life-support would have been in breach of the Eighth Amendment.

The HSE finally apologised yesterday, almost five years after failings in Ms Perie’s care led to a large cerebral cyst on her brain going undiagnosed.

The apology came as the High Court heard claims from six of Ms Perie’s relatives for nervous shock had been settled.

Sources said the sums involved were “substantial”, although the only one publicly disclosed was a €150,000 payment to Ms Perie’s 11-year-old daughter.

Several of Ms Perie’s relatives were in court, including her father Peter, brother Daniel and aunts Mary and Susan.

“While today’s apology brings some closure, and will allow us finally grieve for Natasha, the pain, heartbreak and distress will never go away. Natasha is gone forever,” Peter Perie said afterwards.

The family’s case is not yet over, however, and yesterday’s settlements are expected to be dwarfed when further claims for loss of financial support suffered by Ms Perie’s dependants are due to be assessed in January.

Ultimately the case could end up costing the State several million euro when legal costs are taken into account, but it will be some time before the final figure is known.

Details of the tragic case were first revealed by the Irish Independent in December 2014.

Ms Perie began complaining of severe headaches in September that year.

A failure to diagnose the problem left her brain-dead within days of her admission to the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar on November 27.

She was formally declared brain-dead on December 3, but doctors would not turn off her life-support machine as her foetus still had a heartbeat.

This gave rise to concerns they could be in breach of the Eighth Amendment, since repealed, which gave equal status to the rights of mothers and the unborn.

The family were forced to go to the High Court in a bid to allow her to rest in peace.

A three-judge court ruled on St Stephen’s Day 2014 that the ventilator could be switched off. This would happen the following day.

Approving the €150,000 settlement for Ms Perie’s daughter yesterday, Mr Justice Kevin Cross said the High Court had found there had been an erroneous view that there was some obligation to keep Ms Perie alive as a result of the Eighth Amendment.

The court heard Ms Perie’s daughter, then six, had witnessed her in a deteriorating and unrecognisable condition on life support and had been present when it was switched off.

Denis McCullough SC, instructed by solicitor Gillian O’Connor, told the court that Ms Perie’s daughter was horrified when she witnessed the condition her mother was in.

Mr Justice Cross said the child had endured a terrible time and that he hoped when she became an adult she would be comforted by good memories of her mother.

Legal actions were initiated by Ms Perie’s relatives against the HSE in 2016 and the family are known to be upset the case was not settled sooner.

Liability in respect of their main claim, that her death was caused by a failure to diagnose the brain cyst, was admitted only earlier this year.

Mediation was directed by the court earlier this month after the HSE said various family members had to prove they met the criteria for nervous shock.

Nervous shock is a psychiatric injury, beyond emotional grief or distress, suffered as a result of negligence or breach of duty.

In an apology read to the court, Midland Regional Hospital general manager Anita Brennan said she wanted to offer “sincere and deepest sympathy” over Ms Perie’s death in the hospital’s care.

“I would like to convey our sincere apologies to you and your family for the failings in the care provided to Natasha and for the consequential upset, distress and trauma you and your family have endured,” she said.

In a statement on behalf of the family after yesterday’s hearing, Peter Perie said: “Five years ago, my beautiful daughter Natasha was admitted to Mullingar general hospital suffering from severe headaches and was misdiagnosed as suffering from morning sickness.

“She was a 26-year-old pregnant young girl. Sadly, Natasha never came home. She died as a result of a large cerebral cyst that went undiagnosed while in hospital.

“What followed was nothing short of a nightmare.”

Mr Perie said the civil action was his family’s third encounter with the legal system since his daughter’s death.

The application over her life support meant the family had to spend Christmas Eve and St Stephen’s Day in court. Mr Perie said for his two grandchildren Christmas would be “forever associated with the loss of their beloved mum”.

Then there was an inquest in September 2015, which Mr Perie described as “horrendous and distressing”.

The High Court has previously heard the issue of negligence was “hotly contested” at the inquest hearing.

Mr Perie said the family were made to feel like they were on trial and described the open verdict as “unsatisfactory”.

“The facts which the family maintained were correct at the inquest were disputed at the inquest by the HSE but have since been admitted,” he said.

Irish Independent

€10m payout for van crash victim left in wheelchair

A young man who suffered a brain injury when he was a passenger in a van driven by a learner driver who had been drinking has settled his High Court action for €10m.

William White was sitting between the front seats and was not wearing a seatbelt when he was thrown out of a window.

It happened as the driver over-corrected on a bend, spun out of control and hit a ditch twice as they travelled home after a night out.

Mr White’s counsel, Thomas Creed SC, told the court his client and the driver of the van, James Lordan, had been drinking and playing pool for about three hours until 1.30am and then headed home in the van along with two others.

The small van struck the ditch twice. The driver and two other passengers emerged unscathed but Mr White suffered a severe head injury, counsel said.

The court was told the settlement reflects that Mr White, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was deemed 45pc at fault and the driver was 55pc to blame.

Mr White was 22 when the accident happened at Inchincurka, Dunmanway, Co Cork, just a few days before Christmas in 2013.

The court heard he cannot talk or walk, needs to use a wheelchair and requires 24-hour care.

Mr White, of Derrinacahara, Dunmanway, through his mother Eleanor White, sued the van’s owner and driver, Lordan (24), of Droumdrastil, Dunmanway, over the accident which happened on December 21, 2013.

It was claimed that Lordan drove too fast and allegedly failed to have any adequate regard to physical features and conditions prevailing at the time and place of the crash.

Mr White was unconscious when admitted to hospital and a CT scan showed multiple haemorrhagic brain contusions. He was in a coma for five weeks.

Four years ago, Lordan pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving causing serious harm to Mr White and to drink-driving when he appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Judge Donagh McDonagh, who said the crash had occurred because of a momentary lapse of concentration, fined him €3,500 and disqualified him from driving for four years and three months.

The judge said imprisoning Lordan would achieve nothing by way of punishment or rehabilitation of a defendant, who was remorseful and also suffering the consequences of his actions.

At the time Mr White’s father Michael told the court that his son was in a coma for five weeks after the accident.

“He loved his girlfriend and his life and was very happy. But now his and our lives have changed dramatically as he needs 24-hour-a-day care now and into the future,” his father said.

Yesterday Michael White told the High Court that his son is making progress and his family see changes every six months.

Mr Justice Kevin Cross approved the settlement.

Irish Independent