A carpenter wielded a hammer in a threatening manner over a man he believed was feigning accidental injury to fraudulently obtain compensation, a judge held yesterday.
Judge Alan Mahon in the Circuit Civil Court awarded aggravated damages against Kilroe Developments Ltd., Newcastle, Enfield, Co Meath, to mark the court's disapproval of such behaviour by one of its employees.
James Maguire (37), a labourer, of Matt Talbot Court, Dublin, was awarded €15,000 damages for injuries to his right leg and back which he said had been caused by a "plank" of hardboard which fell on him from a building site.
Judge Mahon told Ivan Daly, counsel for Mr Maguire, that he had included €2,000 in the award because of the aggressive and threatening manner in which Mr Maguire had been treated while lying injured on the ground. He accepted that Paddy McMenamin, the carpenter involved in the hammer incident, at the time genuinely believed that Mr Maguire was orchestrating injury to obtain compensation but it did not justify aggressive behaviour.
Mr McMenamin told the court he had been stripping plywood casings from concrete on the second floor of the construction site in Amiens Street, Dublin, on May 12th, 2003, when a strip of the plywood slipped and fell to the ground.
He said he had watched the wood until it had struck the ground and it had not come in contact with anyone. It was standing in an upright position against a hoarding before he left the scaffolding to retrieve it.
When he had got to the area he found the position of the piece of wood had changed and was then lying alongside Mr Maguire who was lying on the ground.
Mr McMenamin said he had not threatened Mr Maguire.