Co Down landlord with Dublin apartments faces €50k bill from negligence claim

Ray Managh

A Co Down man, who travels to Dublin once a month to pick up rents in apartments he owns in the city, now faces a €50,000 bill for damages and costs arising from a negligence claim against him by a former tenant.

Barrister Paul Gallagher told Judge Ronan Munro in the Circuit Civil Court today that Larry McGlade, of Cashel Road, Silverbridge, Newry, had completely ignored a €60,000 personal injuries claim against him by Dublin legal assistant Agnieszka Mazur.

Mr Gallagher, who appeared with Anderson and Gallagher Solicitors for Ms Mazur, of The Mews, Edenmore Avenue, Dublin, said she had obtained judgment against Mr McGlade in the absence of his entering an appearance in her legal proceedings. He had completely ignored the proceedings.

The court heard McGlade owned The Mews and rented out apartments there. In Ms Mazur’s case she had been instructed by McGlade to use a large window in her apartment to enter and exit a balcony on which she had been told to dry her laundry.

There had been no clothes drier in her apartment on the basis it would have caused damp and mould to grow on the walls.

Mr Gallagher told Judge Munro that on one occasion, while returning from the balcony with a basket of laundry, Ms Mazur had been caused to slip on the window sill and fell heavily on her back onto the floor of her apartment striking strongly the bottom of her spine.

He said she had been left with a displaced fracture of her coccyx and injuries to her lumber spine and right elbow.

Ms Mazur told the court that four years after the May 2021 accident she still suffered with lower back pain. She said the injuries to her arm and coccyx had cleared up. She suffered pain if sitting for more than several hours which affected her mostly at her work and while travelling.

Judge Munro, who accepted that McGlade had been properly served with notice of the claim against him and of today’s hearing at which he did not appear, awarded Ms Mazur just under €23,000 damages.

He also awarded costs against McGlade for the proceedings which started out in the High Court and had been remitted to the Circuit Court. Legal costs are estimated to cost McGlade in the region of €28,000.