A woman who claimed she injured her back due to lack of training on how to properly bend down to push a newsletter through a letter box has had her claim for €38,000 damages rejected in the Circuit Civil Court.
Mrs Bernadette Higgins, of Shancastle Lawns, Clondalkin, Dublin, alleged she wrenched her back while bending down to push a parish magazine through a ground-level letter box.
She claimed her employer, Rowlagh Parish Education Society, Wheatfield Close, Clondalkin, had failed specifically to train her how to bend bearing in mind that some letter boxes were extremely low and difficult to open.
She told Ms Adrienne Fields, counsel for the society, she had been employed on a FÁS scheme as an administration clerk and near Christmas 1999 had been told to deliver several hundred magazines and calendars in the Rowlagh area.
Mrs Higgins said she had made deliveries to about 20 houses when, on stooping low to push the magazine through a ground-level letter box, felt a twinge in her back.
She had suffered severe pain over Christmas and New Year and had to attend her doctor and Blanchardstown Hospital.
Judge Elizabeth Dunne, dismissing her claim, said there was a recognised obligation on an employer to train staff to do the work for which they had been employed. In the circumstances of what Mrs Higgins had been asked to do she could not accept her employer had breached any statutory obligation.
She said somebody with a job not requiring manual handling training, and who injured themselves while stooping to pick up a pen, could not reasonably sue an employer for lack of training on how they should have properly lifted it off the floor.