Court dismisses woman’s damages claim for serious injuries suffered in collision

The High Court has dismissed an action for damages by a woman who claimed she suffered serious injuries after her car was involved in a collision with a delivery truck.

Audrey Neville claimed truck driver John Gubbins came over on to her side of the road causing the collision.

However Ms Justice Emily Egan found the truck driver was on his correct side and was not liable for the collision.

The judge said she had to accept Mr Gubbins’s evidence that on rounding a corner, Ms Neville’s car “did not follow the line of the road but instead continued straight” towards the truck and that she collided with it.

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She also accepted Mr Gubbins’ evidence that when he saw her car approaching him he executed a gradual swerving manoeuvre from his position on the correct side of the road to the grass verge.

In the judge’s view, there was “nothing further” Mr Gubbins could have done to avoid the collision and he was, therefore, not liable for the accident.

Ms Neville, of Ballyduff Road, Killeen West, Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny, sued Mr Gubbins of Ballylough, Bansha, Co Tipperary, over the accident on the morning of January 17th, 2018.

Ms Neville, a pastry chef, had been on her way to visit her sister in Kilkenny and was driving along a series of bends on the Kilkenny Road from Graiguenamanagh.

She said that as she approached a left-hand bend, she was confronted by the defendant’s Mercedes ATE 60 truck which, she claimed, came around the corner towards her on the incorrect side of the road and hit her car.

She had to be cut from her car, having suffered serious injuries including a severe dislocation of the right elbow, a fracture to the right forearm, a fractured clavicle, a fractured third rib and a fractured jaw.

She had to undergo significant surgery and the court heard she remains in pain, is functionally limited and has psychological injuries.

Mr Gubbins, who had been delivering Coca Cola to shops and pubs in the area since 2015, said he was driving at around 65 or 70 km per hour with his passenger side wheels on the yellow line marking the inside edge of the metal surface of the road.

He said that as he was driving towards the bend a car started to appear and, rather than turning, it continued straight across the road towards his truck.

He said he decelerated and swerved, in as far as he could, some five feet into the grass verge in an attempt to avoid a collision.

The judge said the collision was not head-on. The impact to Ms Neville’s vehicle was by way of a diagonally angulated crash from the front driver’s side, with much of the impact to the driver’s front corner.

The judge heard evidence from expert engineers for both sides, a healthcare assistant who came upon the scene, a fireman, and the investigating garda.

Having considered all that evidence, including photographic and sketch evidence, the judge said she was led to the inevitable conclusion that Mr Gubbins was on the correct side of the road at the time of the impact.

“I cannot otherwise envisage how the truck could in so short a distance post-collision reposition from the allegedly incorrect side of the road to well off the road on its correct side,” she said.