Personal injuries action over fall from playground monkey bars dismissed

The High Court has dismissed a damages claim brought over injuries a boy sustained when he fell from a monkey bars in a playground.

Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger said Daire Sean Hickey, of Corbally, Co Limerick, was nine when he fell from the climbing frame at a playground in Limerick in 2014.

He was there with his older brother and younger sister, while his mother supervised from her car which was parked outside the playground railings, the judge said. The boy fell to the ground at about the fourth bar along and was in severe pain due to his fractured arm, which required surgery, she added.

Dismissing his claim against Limerick City Council, an inspection service and the device’s manufacturer, the judge said the risk of falling from the climbing frame “cannot be entirely removed”.

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“Even in a safe controlled environment such as a playground, accidents can and will happen,” she said.

The fall risk can be reasonably provided for by providing a safe, thick ground surface aimed at minimising head injury but not necessarily avoiding every risk of bruising or even an occasional broken limb, she said.

Liability for such accidents will only rest with a defendant where the plaintiff established, on the balance of probabilities, that the defendant fell below a reasonable standard of care.

This was not established here, she said, as the defendants complied with their obligations in the design, manufacture, installation and inspection of the equipment.

Ms Justice Bolger concluded that the climbing frame, which had arched and zigzagging bars, was “carefully designed to ensure an adventurous and challenging play experience for a child of the plaintiff’s age at the time of his accident in a controlled and safe environment”.

The judge said the boy told her he fell “because of the bad monkey bars”, which were “all over the place”. His mother told the court she could see he was struggling before he fell.

The mother was not concerned about the climbing device before the incident but subsequently believed they were dangerous due to their zigzag design, the judge added.

The boy sued Limerick City Council, which installed the equipment in 2014; Clancourt Management, which monitored it via weekly inspections at the time and has an office at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin; Hags Aneby Ab, the Swedish firm that manufactured the device; and another company.

Clancourt’s service manager told the court he inspected the playground equipment weekly and found nothing of concern when he examined the monkey bars two days before the incident. He confirmed the council had erected a barrier around the climbing frame a few months after the boy fell and another incident, but he said it was removed a few weeks later and the monkey bars were not modified.

Ms Justice Bolger heard from an engineer on behalf of the boy, who criticised the zigzag design as unusual and dangerous because of the need for the child to reach upwards and outwards in moving from rung to rung.

The council’s engineer confirmed the height of the bars was well within the three metres required under European safety standards. The bars were designed to ensure a physical benefit and a challenge with an acceptable risk for playground equipment, he submitted.

The manufacturer’s technical director said the bars balanced risk and challenge but at all times complied with safety standards.

The judge said she did not find that requiring a child to reach upward and outward was a basis for condemnation. She was satisfied that European safety standards do not limit the design to straight horizontal monkey bars, as suggested by the boy’s engineer.

She accepted the engineering evidence of the manufacturer, represented by Murray Johnson SC and Elaine Power BL, and the council and management firm, represented by Henry Downing SC and Ciara Daly BL, that this type of monkey bar complies with the required standards.

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