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Personal Injury – Vibration

For Employers’ duties see HERE

Vibration is a common and infrequently recognised cause of injury. It is an avoidable result of using many industrial tools such as chain saws, grinding, sanding, hammering or polishing tools.

Apart from general effects such as nausea, giddiness or an inability to focus, all caused by vibration to the entire body, it can damage nerves and blood vessels and deaden a limb such as fingers or hands in “whitefinger”. As the name suggests the first symptom is often a finger turning white and remaining in that condition, only gradually returning to normal. If it becomes established it is irreversible. In extreme cases gangrene will set in and require amputation of the affected limb.

Vibration can disrupt tendons and cause “carpal tunnel syndrome”. This results from nerve entrapment in the carpal tunnel in the hand, formed by the carpal bones. The tunnel encloses the median nerve and nine flexor tendons. If through injury, a swelling or reduction takes place in the tunnel, the median nerve will be adversely affected and cause a number of symptoms in the hand including numbness, tingling, burning, clumsiness and pain.

Vibration is best dealt with at the design stage of the relevant machine. Spring mounted handles on chain saws will virtually eliminate vibration dangerous to the majority of workers. Direct contact with the vibrating metal of the tool is the most obvious circumstance to avoid. Even a rubber or plastic grip will significantly protect the worker. If the machinery is badly designed, it should be replaced. At the very least, substantial rest breaks will delay the onset of the condition.

It may be easy to overlook the effects of travelling on a vehicle such as a tractor in the context of vibration. However, the jerking of the whole body and other movements transmitted to the body are a form of vibration, albeit at low frequencies.

In a study in 1960 of 371 tractor drivers, long periods of tractor driving over rough terrain was shown to cause stomach complaints and spinal disorders. There was a direct relationship between the severity of the complaints and the length of service of the drivers. Kidney damage was also indicated by the presence of blood in urine.

Foot in Mouth Disease

See HERE for a report of a reference in the Seanad (the upper house of the Irish Parliament) to the drinking water crisis in Galway.

Apparently, one of the Ministers of the Government has publicaly expressed the view that there is nothing wrong with the public drinking water supply of Galway, save for the fact that the water is undrinkable.

This Minister is a close colleague (and fellow party member) of the responsible Minister (Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government).

The latest anecdotal evidence (gossip) indicates that the source of the pollution is human sewage. Apparently, the local authorities have been discharging the waste from their sewage plants into Lough Corrib. The drinking water is then taken from the Corrib.

Cryptosporidiosis – Galway (5)

PROBLEM: (That word again). At least 112 people have fallen ill in Galway as a result of consuming polluted water from the public drinking water supply, The City Council supplies the water to the city and the County Council supplies the water to the county.

What is the legal position, of an injured person, arising in this situation?

ANSWER:

1. The City Council is a thing of statute. Although its powers and responsibilites are defined by statute it is settled law that it is answerable for wrongs it may commit, whether by commission or omission, in exercising its functions.

2. The evidence available (the Council has made admissions) shows that;

a) the public drinking water supply is polluted;
b) the Council supplied the water in its polluted state;
c) people fell ill as a consequence.

3. The Council is obliged in Irish statute law to supply clean and wholesome drinking water to the public. There are good reasons to believe that the admitted breach of statutory duty entitles injured persons to claim compensation on foot of the breach.

4. Separately, and in addition, the Council is a supplier of a “productâ€? within the meaning of the Liability for Defective Products Act 1991.

5. Section 2 of the Act of 1991 reads “The producer shall be liable in damages in tort for damage caused wholly or partly by a defect in his product.â€?Damage includes personal injury.

6. Separately, and in addition, the Council appears to have committed a public muisance. There is a view that liability of this kind is strict, that is, without the obligation to prove, effectively, negligence on the part of the Council.

7. There appears to be evidence that the Council is liable to injured persons under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher (1866) LR 1 Ex 265. Under this rule anyone who brings on his land and collects there something, which, if it escapes, is liable to cause damage is strictly liable for any such damage occurring on its escape.

THE VIEWS AND COMMENTS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF, AND PERSONAL TO, THE WRITER, AND ARE INTENDED FOR GENERAL DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY. THEY ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE RELIED UPON BY ANY PARTY. NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY IS GIVEN AS TO THE ACCURACY OR CORRECTNESS OF SAME, NOR ARE THEY REPRESENTED AS CONTAINING (OR AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR) LEGAL ADVICE OR ASSISTANCE. NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER (WHETHER IN CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, NEGLIGENT MISSTATEMENT OR OTHERWISE AT ALL) IS ACCEPTED TO ANY PERSON ARISING OUT OF ANY RELIANCE ON THESE VIEWS.

Frank Shortt

The facts are known and admitted. Frank Shortt, now aged 72, an accountant by profession and the owner of a nightclub in County Donegal, was framed by senior police officers on charges of facilitating drug dealing in his nightclub, for which he was convicted and sent to jail for 27 months in 1995. See HERE for a journalist’s account of the affair and its consequences.

Mr. Shortt appealed his conviction but the conviction was affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeal (a fine element of IR£10,000 was remitted). Ultimately, due to events elsewhere, Mr. Shortt’s new lawyers gained access to evidence by which he could prove he was innocent and again appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal where the State did not contest the appeal, See HERE for the fall-out.

In the events that happened, Mr. Shortt applied, as was his right and entitlement, to the High Court for compensation under statute for the miscarriage of justice of which he was the victim. He was awarded €1.9 million. See HERE for the judgement and HERE for evidence of his reaction.

Meanwhile his family, including his wife settled their claim for compensation against the police force and Ireland for the suffering they experienced as a result of the wrong done to Mr. Shortt. See HERE for a report. Significantly, the damages were expressly paid without any admission of legal liability by or on behalf of the police or Ireland.

He appealed to the Supreme Court. See HERE for the judgements and HERE and HERE for the outcome and HERE for a comment.

The police officers are at large. They have not been arrested, although they are no longer in the police. The most senior of them was permitted to retire and is currently in receipt of his pension.

The Supreme Court remarked caustically on the absence of any real apology from the State and particularly the police force. Now one has emerged; see HERE.

The State

The Supreme Court referred to the wrong done to Frank Shortt by the State. In fact the wrongs done to Frank Shortt were done by persons. No State can act other than by persons. Like commercial corporate bodies, a State is an abstraction, a myth.

For misplaced, but deeply human, conceptual reasons abstractions tend not to be judged by the same standards as persons. By a process of association, the agents of such abstractions often get the benefit of the privileged standards applied to their principals, the abstractions.

If the Irish State were to be undermined or destroyed, we could replace it. The State is not the fundamental element of social life; the community is.

Within the community there are differing and contending forces seeking, often, their own interests. In a democracy there is a concession from its members not to have resort to force to protect the interests being assailed by the opponents. Despite this, or because of it, on the part of the opponents there is a perennial drive and effort to co-opt the State, the highest secular abstraction, to the purpose of copper fastening the benefits of any such assault. This is, in effect, an assault on the State. The abstraction will be undermined if it is bent to that purpose.

On this view, it is not the State that is to be castigated when its mechanisms are abused; it is the individual members of society seeking to, or facilitating, such abuse.

Furthermore it is not possible to hold the State to account. We see this in Frank Shortt’s case; the compensation he is to get will be paid by the taxpayer. The taxpayer is not the State.

The real work in the Frank Shortt case is left undone; it is essential to, at a minimum, pass judgment on the persons who perpetrated the wrong done to Frank Shortt and any persons who became accomplices after the fact. To date, private persons, Frank Shortt and his lawyers, have done all the work. That should now be taken up and concluded by the Government.

Cryptosporidiosis – Galway (4)

90,000 people in Galway are without a safe public drinking water supply for an indefinite period, following the pollution of the supply with Cryptosporidium, a parasitic micro-organism.

Meanwhile there are (at time of writing) 112 reported cases of illness, some serious, although medical experts are of the opinion that the number is far higher. One city councillor, who fell ill, reports she lost a stone in weight as a consequence.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government travelled to Galway on Friday 30th March 2007 to, as he said, “knock heads togetherâ€?.

His motivation was more likely that of keeping his own head, politically speaking.

Legally, the responsibility within the Government for ensuring that the people of Galway have a safe public drinking water supply lies, with him, the Minister, and always did.

He is the person charged with meeting the legal obligation of the State, under EU law, to ensure the safety of public drinking water supply.

The State, which has the primary responsibility, in law, to meet that obligation (which it attempted to defer, as long as possible, it would appear) delegated the responsibility to the local authorities.

The Environmental Protection Agency has expressed the position thus:

“The production, distribution and monitoring of drinking water in Ireland is the responsibility of the sanitary authority (i.e. the local authority) in the case of public water supplies which supply water to approximately 80% of Ireland’s population.â€? (more…)

Criminal Justice Bill 2007

The Irish Human Rights Commission has joined in the “debateâ€? on the proposals of the Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform (the Tanaiste) as set out in the Criminal Justice Bill 2007.

They got their contribution in just in time. The Minister is rushing it through the Dail, presumably to ensure its passing before the calling of the General Election in which the Government of which he is a significant part will be going before the electorate in the hope of a return to office.

See HERE
and HEREand HEREand HERE
for this writer’s contribution and HERE
for that of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

Cryptosporidiosis – Galway (3)

The Irish Times has carried a claim that the Cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Galway has been ascertained to have arisen from human faecal sources and not animal faecal sources as had been generally implied by the Galway local authorities.

The Irish Farmers Association has issued the following statement:
“3/28/2007

IFA SEEK AN APOLOGY FROM GALWAY COUNTY COUNCIL

IFA Galway County Chairman Barry Donnelly has demanded that Galway County Council apologise for wrongly blaming farmers for the current water crisis affecting the area. It has emerged through reports that the water has been polluted by human sewerage rather than animal waste, causing it to be unfit for human consumption.

Mr Donnelly said “it was totally unfair for the finger of blame to be pointed at farmers. Galway County Council should have carried out a complete and thorough examination to discover the real cause of the water contamination, before making a scapegoat of the farming community.â€?

“It is now necessary that Galway County Council issue an immediate apology to farmers in the area.â€?”

Hmm… The management of human sewage is also the responsibility of the local authorities.

See HERE and HERE for earlier posts.

Cryptosporidiosis – Galway (2)

Galway City was due a new water treatment plant. The Minister for the Environment, whose job it is to make provision for such facilities, claims he provided the necessary finance in 2002 for the purpose. He claims the Galway local authority, failed to draw down the money and the Mayor is not fit to hold his job (the Mayor’s, not the Minister’s), on the grounds that the Mayor did not know of the Minister’s fund for the plant.

The Minister’s department seems to have been less than forthright in the information it issued to the press on the obligations of local authorities relating to public drinking water. See HERE.

Oddly, nobody in the political world has addressed the fact of the, apparently absolute, legal duty of the sanitary authority (the local authority) to ensure the public drinking water is clean and wholesome.

Breaches of statutory duty normally result in the obligation to pay compensation to the injured persons for whose benefit the duty was created.

The Minister seems to have overlooked earmarking finance to pay that compensation.

Personal Injury – Pressure while diving or tunnelling

For Employers’ duties see HERE

Pressure is experienced most commonly in diving and tunnelling. Commercial diving and tunnelling are very dangerous occupations in themselves without the designed, pressured environment representing a further hazard to the worker.

Tunnelling is also performed under pressure in an enclosed chamber, called a caisson, at the face of the tunnelling. The caisson keeps out underground water.

Divers suffering from “the bends” are the stuff of emergencies in comic books; unfortunately it can happen in real life. Underwater pressure ensures nitrogen from the compressed air is kept in solution in the blood stream. If the pressure is removed too quickly, the nitrogen forms bubbles in the blood and gives the worker cramps or even leads to unconsciousness and death. Apart from pain and incapacity there will be other symptoms such as skin mottling.

Tunnellers can get the bends just like divers. Decompression under proper procedures is required in each case.

In the long term chronic decompression sickness causes bone necrosis. Apart from divers it is estimated that as many as 25% of compressed air workers suffer from bone necrosis. If this occurs in the joints it leads to disablement. About 3% of general compressed air workers and 0.2% of divers are disabled from this cause.

Among tunnellers in Ireland and Britain, a remarkably high number come from Donegal. They select themselves by being recruited by experienced foremen forming a “team” which the employer then hires as a group.

A medical code of practice for work in compressed air has been established, incorporating the Blackpool Decompression Tables. Compressed air workers should have X-rays of joints every two years at least. They should be X-rayed on commencement, in order to have a base for comparison.

In addition to this and other dangers, divers breathing oxygen or a mixture of oxygen and helium may suffer oxygen necrosis below depths of 25 ft. in the case of pure oxygen, and greater than 500 ft. in the case of the mixture. The onset of coma and convulsions can be sudden but is ordinarily preceded by minor feelings of discomfort. The remedy is to immediately surface and breath fresh air.

Separation of Powers

When matters are settled and not the subject of lively debate it is easy for the citizens to forget how important some ideas are.

The principle of the Separation of Powers is one of those ideas.

In Ireland we have adopted that principle and expressed it in Article 15 of the Irish Constitution.

It is possible to undermine that Constitution.

Consider the truncated “debate” of the Criminal Justice Bill in the Dail. It was truncated by the Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform (the Tanaiste), bringing stinging rebukes from the Opposition HERE and HERE and HERE

That process diminishes the role of the Legislature at the expense of the Executive.

Elsewhere the Minister has been critical of the Judiciary in relation to sentencing.

The Judiciary have responded to that and have their own methods of combat, no doubt.

But, individually they are each a person generally trying to do the best they can in a conscientious way. Which is not to endorse everything that is done by every judge. (The writer does not warrant that something similar could not happen here).

There are consequences, not just for Civil Society, of politicised attacks on the Judiciary; see HERE for evidence of some of the other less obvious potential consequences.

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