A beauty consultant who habitually washed her £10,000 diamond engagement ring in the finger-bowl at her favourite restaurant failed in an action for damages yesterday against Wong's Chinese Restaurant, Ranelagh, where it disappeared with the slops. Judge Liam Devally heard in the Circuit Civil Court that a thorough search of the kitchen waste sluice and of refuse bags had failed to uncover Ms Patricia McGettigan's missing ring. Ms McGettigan, owner of Beauty Merrion, in the Merrion Centre, Ballsbridge, told her counsel Mr Gabriel Gavigan, she and her fiance, Mr Graham Day, had been given a finger-bowl to use with the aromatic duck course. She had cleaned her engagement ring with the lemon in the finger-bowl and had left it in the bowl for about an hour-and-a-half before she noticed the bowl had been cleared off the table. The court heard that Mr Day had the 1.8 carat brilliant-cut diamond set in white gold and mounted in yellow gold, and it had cost £9,750 to have it handmade in London. A replacement ring had cost £13,000.
Mr Day told Mr Michael Coen, counsel for the restaurant, that the ring was in the bowl when he left to go to the toilet. He was an optician and had peripheral vision and could see everything on the table. The bowl with the ring was missing when he returned. He had felt not enough was being done and he had created a commotion. A garda was called and later two detectives. A waitress who had served them refused to be searched. Asked by Mr Coen to dismiss the claim for lack of evidence of negligence, Judge Devally said Mr Day, who had since married Ms McGettigan, had clearly and specifically accused the Chinese waitress who had served them of "loitering and listening" near their table.
He said that throughout the 1 1/2-hour meal the valuable ring had lain in the finger-bowl until Mr Day had gone to the toilet. Did it go down the sluice in the kitchen or into one of the rubbish bags which were painstakingly searched in the alleyway? Or was it in the possession of the Chinese waitress who had waited so assiduously upon them and who had refused to be searched? Judge Devally said the gardai were not entitled to and did not search the "suspect" waitress. The ring had never turned up and no one had been charged in connection with its disappearance. "This case treads a very thin line between a criminal charge accusation and a negligence and breach of contract action," Judge Devally said. "On the evidence so far I certainly find negligence on the part of Ms McGettigan in leaving a valuable ring in a finger-bowl for so long and in failing to retrieve it and put it back on her finger."
Dismissing the action, Judge Devally said Ms McGettigan had not satisfied him that Wong's was liable for her loss. He made no order as to costs.