212 / 336
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.
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.
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.
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
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-
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