A 28-year-old accounts executive who injured herself while climbing from a train carriage before it had been drawn up to the platform has been awarded €5,000 damages against Iarnród Éireann.
Ms Jennifer Walsh told the Circuit Civil Court she had been at the rear of the train which had been so crowded she was unable to pass other passengers to exit on the platform at Dalkey station.
She had seen another passenger open the rear door and climb down alongside the track and followed him. As she did so she had fallen and suffered a cut to her head.
Ms Walsh, of Railway Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin, told Mr Gerry Ryan, counsel for Iarnród Éireann, she realised that if she had not got off she would have been taken to the next stop which was at Bray, Co Wicklow.
She said the train had afterwards moved forward to allow people in the rear carriage to exit on the platform.
Judge Dunne said there clearly had been negligence on the part of Irish Rail to have a rush-hour train stop short of a platform. The rail authorities were currently causing inconvenience to commuters at weekends and spending large amounts of money on extending platforms so as to extend the length of trains and avoid such accidents happening.
Ms Walsh had difficulty in making her way up the train and on seeing another passenger exit the train in an unconventional manner she had decided to follow him.
"With the benefit of hindsight I have no hesitation in saying it was a foolish thing for her to have done but I can understand the panic," Judge Dunne said. "The worst that would have happened to her was that she would have ended up in Bray and would have had to get another train back."
Judge Dunne said people in such circumstances did not often think logically or carefully and acted in the heat of the moment and she was not going to find against her on the issue of contributory negligence.