Tim Healy of the Independent reports a woman who broke her ankle when she slipped on vomit while leaving a toilet in a pub has been awarded €82,000 in High Court damages. 

Bookmaker’s clerk Fiona McGovern, Huntstown Wood, Clonsilla, Dublin, sued Tom Salmon Ltd, owners of Salmon’s Pub in Blanchardstown, Dublin, over the incident on March 24, 2008.

Ms McGovern (39) claimed the pub was negligent in failing to maintain appropriate cleaning standards and failing to ensure the vomit was cleaned up.

Awarding her a total of €82,000, Mr Justice Kevin Cross said she had suffered a nasty injury to her left ankle. On the application of her barrister, Bernard McDonagh SC, the judge also awarded her the costs of the case. 

Mr Justice Cross said Ms McGovern had been at the pub with family on Easter Sunday to watch a football match on the TV between Liverpool and Man Utd.  She was there “for some inexplicable reason to support Man Utd”, he said.

She returned later that night at around 11.30pm to see if her sister was still there and was advised she (sister) was in the beer garden, he said.

Ms McGovern went to the ladies toilet and on leaving it she slipped on vomit which was on the floor. A woman who knew her to see said that earlier one of a group of young lads, who had been sitting near the toilets, had vomited twice on the floor. 

It had not been cleaned up according to that woman, the judge said. The defendant had submitted it was hard to believe vomit would have been on the floor for up to one-and-a-half hours after it happened, the judge said.