A Circuit Court decision holding South Dublin County Council responsible for an accident on a rain-slicked carriageway is to be appealed to the High Court.
The council believes that if the ruling went unchallenged it would leave local authorities open to material and personal injury claims from motorists who skid in wet conditions.
Earlier this week Judge Bryan McMahon awarded a Co Cork motorist £20,000 damages for the BMW he wrote off when the car spun out of control across a pool of water on the Dublin-Naas dual carriageway and ended up wrecked in a ditch.
Judge McMahon held that a quarter-inch deep pond, measuring 4 ft by 90 ft, had caused the car of Mr Martin McMahon to aquaplane at speed on the carriageway as he passed two other vehicles.
The court had heard that a water gully at the scene of the accident was partly blocked and that South Dublin County Council had done nothing about it even though it had been put on notice of the hazard on a number of occasions. Although he held Mr McMahon 15 per cent responsible for having broken the speed limit during the manoeuvre, and deducted the scrap value of the car, the cost of replacing the wrecked year-old BMW was over £20,000.