Claiming for Damage/Injury caused by improper roads......

A question many are interested in is if you are involved in an incident that is without question the fault of
the road surface, what are your entitlements to claim from your local authority on same.
Well Local authorities can't be sued for not carrying out repair work on a road. In particular, they are not liable for damage ensuing from pot-holes which occur through "fair wear and tear" or through "natural causes". They are not liable even if they have been informed of the appearance of such a pot-hole and fail to repair it. Because they can cite "lack of resources" to deal with it quickly. As long as they have a system for such repairs, and their prioritisation, the length of time it takes to get to it is not a facto.r Equally, local authorities are not liable if "normal wear and tear" leaves a manhole cover standing proud of the road 'surface and this causes damage.All this is the opposite to what pertains in Britain, which abolished this immunity for local authorities for "non-feasance" in 1961. It's a point worth noting that, in Ireland, the Civil Liability Act of 1961 had a provision that "a road authority shall be liable for damage caused as a result of its failure to maintain adequately a public road" but this required an order of the Government and no such order has ever been made.

But a local authority is liable if it repairs a road, or a pot-hole, "in a negligent manner". In other words, if the pot-hole is repaired and suddenly opens again in a short time and somebody's car is damaged by it, they have a case. According to one solicitor, such "mis-feasance" happens all the time. And any good engineer will be able to tell if this is the case, provided he is sent quickly to evaluate the scene. Local authorities have been known to re-repair a pot-hole very quickly if notified that a potentially expensive lawsuit is on the way because of it.

So What Can you Do?
Evaluate the damage, get an engineer's report on the damage and the offending pot-hole, bad road surface and immediately consult a solicitor specialising in property and
material damage. Keep a throw-away camera with you, so you can show the pot-hole and the damage. It's the kind of evidence which can lead to a quick settlement out of court, always the best way. It's also important that the injured party finds out whether the offending roadworks were carried out by another body with its own "enabling statutory powers", for whose mis-feasance the local authority can't be held liable. Services companies would be a case in point here any action would have to be taken directly against such an organisation. ie, phone companies, water authorities..

However, if the local authority licenses an organisation to open the road and, by being done badly, the work causes damage, the authority can be liable.