The Gazette 1975

drilling. A Scaling bar would enable him to discover if there was any loose rock likely to fall. He had been examined by the safety officer ?s to the safety rules in the mine, but apparently had no scealing bar on the day of the accident. The jury's findings of negli- gence appears to indicate that they thought he had been negligent in not furnishing himself with a scal- ing bar. The failure to have the mine properly timber- ed, ?s the plaintiff alleged wi t h i n the conditions in the mine was a failure in an area where very serious injury could result, and in respect of a duty which was ab- solute. Consequently the apportionment was correct. Th e next question was whether the jury could find that the defendants failed in their common law duty to provide a safe place of work for the plaintiff. The Court held the jury could have so found. The final ground was the damages were excessive. Th e Court, having found that, of the £13,700 awarded, £4,525 was in respect of special damages, examined the medical evidence in detail, and stated plaintiff was 26 years old at time of accident, and went to live in Bur- tonport in West Donegal, where few hospital facilities were available. The jury awarded £9,000 for general damages, of which £3,000 was for distress and hospital expenses. The damage amounts to a limitation of the movement in the damaged right arm which is not so serious for a left-handed person. The arthritis which plaintiff sustained at the time of the accident is unlikely to disappear, and will probably increase. In the cor- cumstances, the sum of £6,000 is not excessive. The defendant's appeal is consequently dismissed. Gallagher v Mogul of Ireland Ltd.—Supreme Court (Walsh, Budd and Griffin JJ.) per Walsh J—unreported—30 July, 1975. Th e infant plaintiff was 4 years old when the present accident occurred. The defendant was the owner of the house in Victoria Road, Cork, where the accident occurred, and was the paternal grandmother of the infant. The defendant resided in the house with her two adult daughters Anne and Marie, who were in employment in Cork. The father and mother of the plaintiff, as well as the plaintiff, had lived ?broad, and came back to reside in Cork with plaintiff's mat- ernal grandmother. On the date of the accident, the plaintiff and her parents were invited to defendant's house for an evening meal. Before tea was served, plaintiff's father left, plaintiff's mother was washing dishes in the kitchen, and the defendant drying them. Anne was upstairs, while Marie prepared the tea, which she eventually brought to the breakfast room, where infant plaintiff was. At that moment, the telephone rang in the hall, and Marie went to answer it. The in- fant plaintiff was thus left alone in the breakfast room; she them succeeded in pulling down the teapot, which If an infant plaintiff spills tea over herself, the defendant grandmother, who provided the hos- pitality, is prima facie negligent, as the daughter who left the teapot in the room, was in the de facto service of her mother.

was on the table, on top of herself, causing most ser- ious burns to the body. Thereupon Murnaghpn J. with drew the case from the jury, on the ground that there was no evidence upon which a jury could hold de- fendant liable. The infant plaintiff appealed. Walsh J., with whom O'Higgins C. J. concurred, in delivering the majority judgment, held that if a jury found that Marie had put a teapot within easy reach of the infant, they might find her negligent. The next question to be considered was whether, i n said corcumstances, the relationship between the mother and the daughter Marie was such as to make the mother vicariously liable for the negligence of Marie. The negligence at- tributed to Marie was not the usual negligence of a fellow guest, but may be regarded as the negligence of a person engaged in one of the duties of her brother carried out in the course of hospitality extended by her mother. The nature and limits of this hospitality were completely under the control of the mother, and in this case Marie was standing in the shoes of her mother, and carrying out a task which would have been prim- arily that of her mother. Marie's performance was a gratuitous service for her mother. Th e person requested to assist in the service, but who was not hired for the purpose is in the de facto service of her mother in these circumstances. As the mother could in law have been held to be vicariously liable for the negligence of her daughter Marie, Murnaghan J. should not have withdrawn the case from the jury. The appeal is ac- cordingly allowed, and there will be a direction for a new trial. Henchy J. delivered a dissenting pudgment. Patricia Moynihan v Mary Moynihan—Supreme Court (O'Higgins C. J., Wa l sh and Henchy JJ.—Sep- arate judgments by Walsh J. and Henchy J.—unre- ported—29 July, 1975. Despite the absence of a building programme, a housing authority can make a compulsory pur- chase order to purchase lands for its housing needs. Th e main plaintiffs own 22 acres near Cobh. In June, 1973, Cobh U.D.C. made an order that this land should be compulsorily acquired under the Housing Act 1966, and the order was confirmed by 'the Minister in May, 1974. "This confirmation was preceded by a public inquiry held by an inspector in Cobh in Jan- uary, 1974. T h e Inspector expressed an opinion that the lands were suitable for housing purposes. Th e plaintiffs issued a special summons in the High Court on 31 May 1974, seeking to quash the Minister's Compulsory Purchase Order. T h e matter was heard before Parke J. in February, 1975, who made an order quashing the Minister's order. Parke J. had held that, as Cobh U.D.C. had no building programme which Section 55 of the Housing Act 1966 obliges them to prepare, they could not validly exercise the powers conferred by Sections 76 and 77 of the Act, which they had purported to do here. Although Cobh U . D . C: had no building programme, it had housing needs. If a housing authority already holds lands, it may em- .207