{"id":555611,"date":"2026-07-18T06:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T06:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555611\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T06:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T06:05:12","slug":"woman-who-tripped-on-housing-estate-footpath-awarded-e110000-by-high-court-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555611\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman who tripped on housing estate footpath awarded \u20ac110,000 by High Court \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman who tripped and fell on a footpath in a housing estate, fracturing her shoulder, has been awarded \u20ac110,000 by the High Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Healthcare assistant- Carol Loua has suffered significantly and continues to do so after a fall as she walked from her home through a housing estate on the way to the hairdressers eight years ago, Judge Denise Brett said.<\/p>\n

Loua said her foot caught on concrete projecting upwards from the ground, causing her to fall. The judge accepted that the incident in April 2018 at Broadfield Court, Rathcoole, Dublin<\/a>, occurred in the manner described. <\/p>\n

The judge said she was satisfied that the differential in the pavement slabs was caused by root action from an original lime tree planted in the adjacent verge. <\/p>\n

The judge said the evidence established that the root uplift which ultimately caused the incident arose from the growth of a tree selected and planted by estate developers Cavan Developments Ltd in the narrow grass verge.<\/p>\n

Loua won her case against Cavan Developments Ltd, which built the Broadfield estate where she was walking and also planted the original lime tree. A case against the local authority South Dublin County Council<\/a> (SDCC) was dismissed.<\/p>\n

The judge noted that the developer had arranged for the removal of the tree in October 2017 but no remedial work was undertaken to the adjoining footpath and that no notification of the condition of the footpath or the tree was given to SDCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is striking about the evidence is that the developer remains sufficiently involved to arrange for the removal of the very tree which the court has found caused the damage. By that point the defect already existed. Yet neither remediation nor notification followed. Had evidence existed that the condition had been reported to the council when the tree was removed, different considerations might potentially have arisen.,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

The judge stressed that it was not a case about whether trees ought to be planted in residential developments and was not a case about discouraging roadside planting or concerning the ordinary maintenance of mature trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue in this case is much narrower. It concerns the consequence of planting a particular species of tree in a particular physical environment and the damage which subsequently occurred as that tree foreseeably developed,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

She said the developer relied heavily upon lime trees being among the species recommended by the local authority for street planting.<\/p>\n

A tree expert, she said, had described the lime tree as one more commonly associated with broad avenues, parks and expansive streetscapes and the issue was whether this lime tree was suitable for this location.<\/p>\n

The provision by a planning authority of a list of species considered potentially suitable for street planning, she said, cannot relieve a developer from the obligation of selecting an appropriate species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who tripped and fell on a footpath in a housing estate, fracturing her shoulder, has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,73,61,60,43,13357],"class_list":["post-555611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-south-dublin-county-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}