Could i sue the County / City Council / Road Authority?

JP Liz

I recently damaged by car because of the state of some Irish roads i.e. potholes, dips etc. I'm wondering could i sue the Council, they are responsible or it is the Road Authority?

Darragh29

JP Liz wrote: »

I recently damaged by car because of the state of some Irish roads i.e. potholes, dips etc. I'm wondering could i sue the Council, they are responsible or it is the Road Authority?

I had a customer who a year ago split the sump of his engine after driving over a speed ramp that was outside the permitted specification, basically the gardient on it was outside of the planning regulations or something to that effect. I gave him a written report outlining that his engine had suffered catastrophic damage from oil loss due to impacting a structure that I could not identify, while the car was being driven.

He contacted the County Council and got an engineer out to photograph and measure the offending speed ramp and sent in my damage report & invoice (approximately 1,400 Euro), for payment. He got a letter the next week saying the cheque was being paid the following week, which he received a few days later. As it happened, he was a taxi and had a witness in the car with him who could back up his story that his car impacted with the speed bump and broke down shortly after, whether this had any bearing on the outcome, I don't know, but he got compensated for it in any event...

pickarooney

Darragh29 wrote: »

I had a customer who a year ago split the sump of his engine after driving over a speed ramp that was outside the permitted specification, basically the gardient on it was outside of the planning regulations or something to that effect. I gave him a written report outlining that his engine had suffered catastrophic damage from oil loss due to impacting a structure that I could not identify, while the car was being driven.

He contacted the County Council and got an engineer out to photograph and measure the offending speed ramp and sent in my damage report & invoice (approximately 1,400 Euro), for payment. He got a letter the next week saying the cheque was being paid the following week, which he received a few days later. As it happened, he was a taxi and had a witness in the car with him who could back up his story that his car impacted with the speed bump and broke down shortly after, whether this had any bearing on the outcome, I don't know, but he got compensated for it in any event...

Did they modify the speed-bump as well?

Fratton Fred

You are supposed to avoid the holes and the council are not liable unless they are aware there of a potential danger, even then you use roads at your own risk. If one person made a succesful claim it would open the door to thousands of claims, the no win no fee lawyers would have a field day.

In the case of a speedbump, they are negligent and therefore immediately liable.

MarkR

You should bring it to the attention of the Lizard People. They are the ones who pull the stings. Maybe you should cc all@illuminati.com.

Sherifu

JP Liz wrote: »

I recently damaged by car because of the state of some Irish roads i.e. potholes, dips etc. I'm wondering could i sue the Council, they are responsible or it is the Road Authority?

1. Take photos.
2. Complain.
3. ???????
4. Profit.

junior_apollo

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You are supposed to avoid the holes and the council are not liable unless they are aware there of a potential danger, even then you use roads at your own risk. ...

Sorry do you have some kind of link to an article for this?...

I am currently in the process of going through the small claims court in relation to an incident where it is the County Council who have been called to the court after the court accepted my claim as legit.

all the stars

Fratton Fred wrote: »

You are supposed to avoid the holes

Irish isn't it?
Pay road tax... avoid the potholes not filled in by the local council which you paid said taxes too...:(

OP.... Sue the council if you can... I hate the county councils!!! They are the most self - serving, unprofessional, useless, no good employed people in the UNIVERSE!
They deserve lots of bad things - can you feel the contempt??? :mad:
(yes i have been wronged on sevral occasions by differant councils... hell hath no fury like mine )

kayos

Avoid the holes? Heavens sake on a dark night, with standing water you wont see some of the caves that are on some roads. Its also hard to avoid the pot holes when they exist all over the road and any way your just gonna swerve to avoid them and thats just causing more problems if there is oncoming traffic.

From what I have heard yes its possible but it can be very hard to actually get them to pay out.

junior_apollo

Tell me about it!... Ive been hounding them since May this year and will get my court hearing in October... :rolleyes:

Now gotta do all the research and dot the i's and t's to ensure they dont get away with it! :mad:

Fratton Fred

junior_apollo wrote: »

Tell me about it!... Ive been hounding them since May this year and will get my court hearing in October... :rolleyes:

Now gotta do all the research and dot the i's and t's to ensure they dont get away with it! :mad:

It stand to reason that if they don't know about a dangerous hole, they can't fill it in and shouldn't be liable. OK they have a certain level of care to keep, but I'm sure they would argue they can't inspect every road every day.

On what grounds are you taking action?

junior_apollo

3 Reasons:

1. The road in question was widened and the pothole formed where the new road and old road joined... ie. the repair/widening was not to the same standard as the main section of road. There is 'supposed' to be a vigil kept on all repairs for a period of time to ensure that this does not occur.
If it was a pothole in the original stretch of road it could be argued that it was normal wear and tear to the road and as such they would need to be notified of its existence before they could take action -> But that is not the case - it is as a result of a poor expansion/repair to the road.

2. There are road maintenance teams who's jobs it is to drive certain sections of road at a time and repair any potholes in the area.
There has been quite a number of repairs to the section of road in question and in fact even roadworks in place on the road only a couple of hundred yards away in the time leading up to my incident - which means that this pothole was either ignored or not seen (hard to miss this semi-crater to be honest).

3. The pothole is on the arc of a rather large bend, and its placement on the road is in the tire path of the car and as such could not be avoided in a safe manner when two vehicles are passing each other, so unavoidable.

Fratton Fred

that's the difference, the council (Or their contrator, but that's irrelevant to your case) were negligent, as with the speed bump.

I doubt very much any court would consider damage caused from a worn out road, but that is clearly not the case here.

Good luck btw.

junior_apollo

Fratton Fred wrote: »

that's the difference, the council (Or their contrator, but that's irrelevant to your case) were negligent, as with the speed bump.

I doubt very much any court would consider damage caused from a worn out road, but that is clearly not the case here.

Good luck btw.

Yeah I would have to kinda agree - (although not in principle) that it would be hard to get them to pay for damage caused by a pothole caused by normal wear and tear to the road.

BUT I do find it extremely infuriating that they can try to use this defense of... "we do not fix anything until damage or an accident are caused and reported", (this is a stance that they appear to take rather than a quote sorry...) as to me that sounds like a form of negligence... "We wont do any of the work until theres a problem with it" :mad:

Thanks for the luck... and fingers crossed it all works out - especially since the damage was to a limited edition car and as such costs a mint...

Fratton Fred

junior_apollo wrote: »

Yeah I would have to kinda agree - (although not in principle) that it would be hard to get them to pay for damage caused by a pothole caused by normal wear and tear to the road.

BUT I do find it extremely infuriating that they can try to use this defense of... "we do not fix anything until damage or an accident are caused and reported", (this is a stance that they appear to take rather than a quote sorry...) as to me that sounds like a form of negligence... "We wont do any of the work until theres a problem with it" :mad:

Thanks for the luck... and fingers crossed it all works out - especially since the damage was to a limited edition car and as such costs a mint...

Just imagine if they were liable for damage caused by wear and tear. every NCT failure would find it's way down a pothole somehow, some of the ones near me a are big enough to fit a Micra in!!

junior_apollo

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Just imagine if they were liable for damage caused by wear and tear. every NCT failure would find it's way down a pothole somehow, some of the ones near me a are big enough to fit a Micra in!!

Well in all fairness now I'd nearly go out and dig holes to put micra's in...