DUBLIN GAA club Kilmacud Crokes has been ordered to pay €51,385 over flood damage to a couple’s home and garden arising out of improvement works on the club’s Leopardstown lands.
In their High Court proceedings, Nigel and Frances Grennan, Torquay Road, Foxrock, had claimed, as a result of clearing and compacting of the club’s pitches and lands in 1998, their garden was repeatedly flooded and their home damaged. They claimed €121,294 in damages. The club denied the flooding was the result of works carried out by them.
Last year, Mr Justice John MacMenamin ruled the club was liable for the nuisance caused to the Grennans when, in 1998, it raised the levels of the pitches and caused surface water to flow into their house.
Yesterday, the judge assessed damages from the flooding to the Grennans’ home and possessions at €51,385, limited to the period 2000 to 2004. During that time, the club acted unreasonably by failing to have regard to the effect the compacting of the club’s lands had, he said.
The judge said he was unable to find the couple’s home continued to be flooded arising from the construction of a “berm wall” between the two properties.
The club had a continuing duty to ensure water did not build up on its side of the wall so as to create a renewed nuisance, he added.
The judge said there had been “a degree of unreasonableness on both sides” in the case. The club should have seen the consequences of its actions but the Grennans did not appear to have taken reasonable steps to mitigate their loss, he said.