Wheelbarrows and Workplace Risk: The High Court Clarifies the Limits of Employer Liability

On 26 June 2025, the High Court (Twomey J) delivered judgment in Lawless v Keatley[1], reaffirming a “common sense” approach to employer’s liability. The Court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim for personal injuries allegedly sustained while emptying a wheelbarrow at work, holding that the incident constituted an unfortunate everyday mishap rather than an actionable workplace accident. The Court concluded that unfortunate everyday mishaps do not transform from being an accident (where no one is to blame) into an “accident at work”. This decision reinforces the principle that employers are not insurers of their employees and highlights the limited role of expert evidence in routine workplace activities.

Background

The plaintiff was employed at Rossmore Cottage Stables, County Kildare as a stable hand at the time of the alleged incident. The plaintiff claimed that he had suffered a back spasm while emptying a wheelbarrow onto an upward incline of soiled hay. Notably, the plaintiff never alleged that the wheelbarrow provided by the defendant was defective. It was also relevant to note that the plaintiff owned two horses himself and was familiar with emptying horseboxes with a wheelbarrow and a fork.

The essence of the plaintiff’s claim involved two elements, firstly that he injured his back after rolling the wheelbarrow up the incline of soft density material and secondly the fact that he had to empty the wheelbarrow on that upward incline.

Legal Principles and Application

In dismissing the claim, the High Court explored two key legal principles:

1. Employers are Not Insurers

The Court re-affirmed that an employer is not an insurer of an employee and the mere existence of employer liability insurance does not imply that the employer should be held liable for everyday mishaps.

Having regard to the relevant jurisprudence, the court considered Nemeth v Topaz Group Limited.[2] In that case, the plaintiff claimed damages after injuring her right knee during the course of her employment at a Topaz filling station. Although the High Court originally found the defendant responsible and awarded over €50,000 in damages, the Court of Appeal overturned this decision. The injury occurred during routine stocktaking when the plaintiff allegedly “assumed a squatting position for a sustained period of time”. The Court of Appeal decision in Nemeth emphasised that liability does not arise from routine activities unless negligence is established.

Nemeth was considered both another welcome application of “common sense” by the Courts and a cautionary tale for plaintiffs, reiterating that employer’s liability is not a strict one and can be successfully defended.

In applying Nemeth, the Court found in Lawless that there “could be nothing more normal” than emptying a wheelbarrow with no need for training and considering the lack of defects, there was no substance to the claim that the employer provided an unsafe system of work.

2. Common Sense Over Expert Evidence

The court emphasized the application of common sense and scepticism to personal injury claims. Twomey J held that engineering and/or medical expert testimonies are not necessitated regarding ordinary and routine matters in which the court itself can decipher and should only apply to circumstances involving “highly specialised areas”. In relation to the plaintiff, the Court confirmed that pushing a wheelbarrow up an incline of soft density requires basic common sense and not expert insight.

Twomey J also cited Rosbeg Partners v L.K Shields in relation to the genuineness and plausibility of witnesses.[3] In that case O’Donnell CJ (then O’Donnell J) opined that:

“It is important to remind ourselves that courts should approach claims such as this not simply on the basis of the genuineness or plausibility of witnesses, but by applying common sense and some degree of scepticism. Litigation inevitably shines a very bright light on the events the subject matter of a claim, but it is also a distorting process in at least two ways. First, there is an inevitable tendency to highlight and focus only upon the issues which are particularly relevant to the claim. Second, the light is being shone in retrospect, when we know the outcome of the events. Inevitably, there is a tendency to recall events and attribute to them a significance in the light of what is known to have occurred subsequently. This is not a reflection on the honesty of witnesses, rather it is human nature.”

Twomey J held that the reasoning in Rosberg (which related to professional negligence claim) applied equally to a person claiming damages for personal injuries.

Implications for Insurers and Employers

This judgment is a welcome development for employers and insurers alike. It underscores:

· The importance of distinguishing between genuine workplace accidents and everyday mishaps.

· The Court’s readiness to apply scepticism and common sense in assessing personal injury claims.

· The limited utility of expert evidence in straightforward cases.

Conclusion

The High Court’s decision in Lawless reinforces two key principles that are particularly relevant to employers and insurers. It affirms that employers are not the insurers of their employees, especially where the alleged incident arises from routine workplace activities. Tasks such as bending to reach a ground-floor shelf, as in Nemeth, or emptying a wheelbarrow, as in Lawless, are recognised by the Court as ordinary and unremarkable. The judgment also highlights the Court’s preference for applying common sense over an over-reliance on expert evidence in straightforward cases. Whether the Courts will begin to impose cost consequences for the unnecessary use of expert witnesses remains to be seen, but this decision suggests a growing judicial appetite for curbing such practices.

For employers, this judgment affirms that maintaining reasonable and practical systems of work is sufficient, particularly where the tasks involved are routine and familiar. It cautions against the expectation that employers must anticipate or eliminate every conceivable risk in such contexts. For insurers, the decision provides a helpful precedent to resist claims that seek to reframe ordinary workplace incidents as actionable negligence.

The Court’s scepticism towards expert evidence in everyday scenarios reflects a pragmatic judicial approach, where common sense is prioritised over technical argumentation. This reasoning is particularly relevant in defending claims involving manual handling, slips, trips and other everyday workplace activities, where the use of expert testimony may be seen as unnecessary or disproportionate.

1 [2025] IEHC 364

2 Nemeth v Topaz Group Limited, [2021] IECA 252.

3 Rosbeg Partners v L.K Shields, [2018] IESC 23