A JUDGE has said it is difficult for lay people to understand the legal concept of "non-feasance" that allows a local authority to let a roadway deteriorate to an "unsatisfactory" state and escape liability for injury.
Dismissing a cyclist's personal injury claim for €38,000 damages, the Circuit Court president, Mr Justice Matthew Deery, said it was the law that a road authority could in effect sit back and do nothing about maintaining a road.
Derek Bradley, an alarm technician, Cappagh Road, Finglas, Dublin, told the court that he broke his left thumb after falling off his bike when it struck a concrete lip on Abbottstown Road, Finglas, in February 2006.
He underwent surgery to have pins inserted in his thumb, which was partly malaligned. He suffered discomfort when gripping things.
John Doherty, counsel for Dublin City Council, told the court that the roadway had been examined by forensic engineer Paul Romeril who found the concrete road had well passed its design life of 40 years and had broken up.
The lipping of which Mr Bradley had complained had arisen from heave rather than subsidence where the bitumen joints had not been maintained, leading to water ingress into the road base.
Mr Doherty told the court the road was constructed more than 50 years ago. The judge said Mr Bradley was passing a parked car at a point where the road had been wide enough for him to manoeuvre safely around the raised lip.
Engineering evidence revealed the road had not been maintained and this amounted to non-feasance on the part of the council for which it was not liable.