NUI GALWAY
SCHOOL OF LAW
FIRST YEAR ORIENTATION 2017
“READING LAW CASES”
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
First, let me extend to you a very warm welcome as you begin your law studies here at NUI Galway. I hope that you will find the next three or four years enjoyable and fulfilling as well as educational.
In this session, we will discuss something that will probably occupy a good deal of your time, not only during your student years, but also throughout your entire legal career, and that is reading law reports.
Ireland has what we call a common law system. This means that while a good deal of our law is made in parliament (i.e. the Dáil and the Seanad) by our elected representatives (T.D.s and Senators), much of it is also made and developed in the higher courts. The courts cannot, of course, make law as and when they see fit. They can only decide questions of law in the context of actual cases that are brought before them. The higher courts, therefore, have two main functions. The first is to resolve disputes that are brought before them, and the other is to clarify what the law actually is, but only in so far as it relates to the particular dispute which happens to be before the court.
It follows therefore that in order to discover what the current law on a particular topic is, we very often have to consult and study decisions of the higher courts, as well as any relevant legislation passed by the Oireachtas (the Dáil and Seanad). This, in turn, means that important decisions of the higher courts have to be made available to the general public as well as to the parties involved in the relevant cases. Not every case decided by one of the higher courts will result in a written judgment, but all of the important ones do. Nowadays, almost all of the written judgments are freely available on the Courts Service website (www.courts.ie). However, the ones that are considered to be truly significant in the sense of clarifying, or even changing, an important point of law are published in printed law reports. We have two main series of law reports in Ireland – the Irish Reports (which is more or less the official series) and the Irish Law Reports Monthly (which is a commercially produced series). The Irish Reports are published in four substantial volumes for every year.
The case I am asking you to read is called McLoughlin v Carr which was decided by the High Court in 2005. I chose this case because, unlike most other cases appearing in the law reports, it is not at all technical but is quite straightforward and accessible. In fact, the background is one with which many of you may be able to identify – working part-time in a pub or a shop, though hopefully, unlike the unfortunate plaintiff in this case, none of you has had to confront armed raiders!
However, you may find some of the case difficult to follow or understand. It would be surprising if you did not, because you have not even begun to study law as yet. But don’t worry about that. Learning law is very much like learning a language. You have to start at the very beginning and gradually acquire a kind of fluency in it. This is what you will be doing over the next three or four years.
So, what I am asking you to do is to take an hour or so (or as long as you like) to read this case, and in so doing try to answer for yourself the following simple questions:
(1) What happened that led to the plaintiff (Mr McLoughlin) taking this case against the defendant (Mr. Carr)?
(2) What was the plaintiff hoping to get as a result of taking this case?
(3) Why did the plaintiff believe that he was entitled to compensation as a result of the events that happened in the early morning of April 2, 2001?
(4) Why was the defendant arguing that the plaintiff was not entitled to compensation?
(5) Who won the case?
(6) Why did the judge (Mr Justice Peart) decide the case as he did?
Finally, just imagine the following (fictitious) scenario:
Michael is an 18-year-old student who gets a part-time job working in pub in Galway which is owned and managed by Mary. He has never worked in a pub or any similar kind of business before. He starts work on October 3 and is not given any training, beyond being shown how to pull pints of stout and beer. On his third day at work, he is ordered by his supervisor, the head barman, to go down to the cellar and bring up a crate of beer. He goes down to the cellar and lifts up a crate, not realising how heavy such crates are. Because of the way he lifts it, he injures his back quite badly. He has to attend a doctor for treatment and has also had to have physiotherapy. He was unable to work for a number of months after that.
Imagine that you are a solicitor who is consulted by Michael who wants your advice as to whether he can sue Mary for compensation for his injury. On the basis of what you have learned from reading McLoughlin v Carr, how would you advise him?
These are among the questions we will be discussing at our meeting on Wednesday, 30 August.
Tom O’Malley