IN OTHER societies and other legal cultures it would be possible to identify judges whose rulings are bizarre, absurd, insulting to the commonweal; but, not here. We have instead a system which allows a judge to be his own judge, counsel, jury and executioner.
If a judge slumbers through a case or by his consistently crazy awards is a huge burden on the public purse or on insurance companies - which alas comes to pretty much the same thing - it is not possible to identify him. Or her. Were we to say that Mr Justice Caomhain Ui Midhir is a blithering idiot who could not be safely entrusted with the trial of a hamster, that fine gentleman can order his critic before his court, and sentence him at his discretion alone, and almost without limit, though I understand that beheading is no longer quite the thing.
Expressions of Approval
The point is of course that the peculiar world that the bench has created for itself permits only expressions of approval. Judges remain above criticism though not above approbation, no doubt for the same general reasons that they expect counsel to collapse in uncontrollable hysteria at their jokes.
Anyway, having thus scared the living daylights out of the unfortunate Irish Times solicitors who read this copy so we don't all end up in jail, let me here commend Judge Lynch, who recently told a litigant who had been blocking a road and who was hit and injured by a car that the accident was 90 per cent his own fault. Lynchie, old thing, I love you; you're an absolute dote, the yolk to my egg and the butter on my toast.
Fortunately he is not alone. Maybe the floodtide of profitable litigitis which has been washing through the courts in recent times is beginning to hit the breakwaters of prudent jurisprudence. Judge James Carroll recently rejected a claim for £30,000 from a woman who was hit by a flying shoe during celebrations in a pub after the Egypt Ireland match in 1990. And more to the point, the fine judge ruled that the costs of the defendants, Meagher Inns, should be paid by the plaintiff. Oh bliss, bliss; if I took sugar in my tea, Judge James Carroll you'd be it.
Protect Against Litigation
Recently this column wrote about the elderly lady who slipped on a piece of potato at a Dublin Corporation lunch centre which provided almost free meals, with the assistance of unpaid helpers, to pensioners. She was awarded several thousand pounds. Now it seemed to me at the time that there is no way that any public body can protect itself against litigation on such grounds.
And so it appears to be. A 63 year old woman was recently awarded £13,500 after slipping con a soft drinks spillage on a DART train and injuring her back and knee. But no organisation which deals with the public scan reasonably be expected to "take provision against every spill of Club Orange or every dropped potato. Trains would have to be patrolled by squads of spill police to protect against litigation provoking accidents and then there would have to be sneeze police to prevent costly spread of diseases, and smell police to ensure we were not traumatised by our fellow passengers' armpits, and possibly requiring counselling.
Yet happily it is not always like this. A break dancer who fractured his ankle during a competition sued the Penthouse pub in Ballymun the other week, alleging that he had slipped on a spilt drink. No split drink police were to hand, but the judge dismissed the case. And the judge? My old chum Judge Lynch.
Not that litigation in itself is wrong. Not at all. One can only sympathise with Thomas Craig, whose nose was broken by Zebedee Moore because the latter thought he was kissing his girlfriend. Moments later the assailant apologised, realising that his eyes had misled him because of the alcohol he had drunk. I trust that you realise in the USA the pub would have been sued for serving Zebedee the drink; though one can't help wondering whether it was the drink or the Magic Roundabout which affected his eyesight.
Accountability
Neither the Magic Roundabout nor Zebedee Moore could in any way be held accountable for the tragic fate which befell a group of lawyers who attended a Sligo discotheque. They were, observed the judge at the court case which resulted from the fate which befell these unfortunates, a distinctive group, unlike other patrons, formally at tired in suits and ties.
What happened in the hotel seems rather like Deliverance, but without the love scene. One of the regular patrons began to eyeball the boogeying barristers, who, knowing an eyeball when they saw one, referred the matter of said eyeballing to a bouncer, who assured them there would be no problem.
Before you could say wigs and braces, the locals were on the barristers and doing a war dance about their earlobes. One barrister was knocked to the ground and suffered a fractured jaw and other injuries. He shouted for help, got none, and crawled into the lobby of the hotel between the legs of a bouncer. Another lawyer attempting to leave was kicked, knocked to the ground and suffered a broken jaw and other injuries.
Yet another lawyer, seeing the Revenge of the Hill Billies enacted before his eyes, requested the Bouncers to end the massacre. They did nothing. And did nothing when his turn came, which resulted in him being thrown into a corner, kicked in the head and suffering cuts and bruises to various parts of his body.
Damages of £12,000 were recently awarded to one of the lawyers; and though we might have difficulty keeping a straight face when we read of what befell possibly an entire generation of future judges, scrambling between bouncers' legs on hotel floors, it is sobering nonetheless to reflect on the innovative hospitality of the Grand Hotel, Sligo, where the assaults took place.
Has Bord Failte awards for places like this? I think it should have. It seems to compare rather favourably with the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo; the perfect place for an adventure holiday, and these days, not a lawyer in sight.