A McDonald’s employee, who had to apply hundreds of dollops of mustard, ketchup and brown sauce to burgers on a daily basis, has lost a €60,000 damages claim against the company for an alleged repetitive strain injury.
Barrister Paul Henry O’Neill, counsel for Persion Restaurants Limited, told Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain in the Circuit Civil Court that such a similar claim could not be traced in any of McDonald’s 1,500 restaurants throughout Ireland and the UK.
Mr O’Neill, who appeared with Donough Shaffrey of Shaffrey Solicitors, Cornelscourt, Dublin, said research had failed to reveal a similar claim in the company’s 38,000 global outlets.
Paulina Wojtowicz, of The Court, Belgard Heights, Tallaght, who was described as one of McDonald’s best workers, claimed she had been required to repeatedly squirt dressings onto burger after burger as part of a production assembly line at the company’s Kylemore Road outlet.
Wojtowicz (31) described the task as excessive, demanding, intensive and unsafe, culminating in an injury to the base of the little finger of her right hand in January 2019 when she had suffered sudden and intensive pain.
She had been transferred to other duties on the day and had been off work for a period of weeks. She had attended her GP and in Poland, had undergone surgery to remove a lump at the base of her right little finger.
Wojtowicz said she had left McDonald’s and had later taken up cleaning duties with another company but had to give it up after only two months. She claimed over €8,000 in lost earnings as a result of her injury.
Consultant ergonomist Dr Celine Mc Keown told Judge Ni Culachain that using sauce dispensers may appear a seemingly simple activity, but anyone assigned to using them over an extended period of time could leave them exposed to a foreseeable risk of injury.
Wojtowicz told the court she had to dispense mustard, ketchup and sauce onto bun burgers and Big Macs from special dispensers which she had to grip and squeeze.
Professor Leonard O’Sullivan, professor in industrial ergonomics at the University of Limerick, told the court repetitive strain injuries come on over a period of time and not instantaneously as Ms Wojtowicz had stated in her evidence.
He said the little finger contributes relatively little to hand grip effort and the ketchup and mustard dispensers were pressed by the thumb with the little finger involved in just holding the handles.
“I struggle to find a link between dispenser trigger force exertions and the activity of the little finger,” he said.
Judge Ni Chulachain, dismissing the claim, said that although Ms Wojtowicz had undoubtedly suffered an injury in January 2019 it could not have been caused as described. A repetitive strain injury was not foreseeable to the defendant. She made no order for costs against Wojtowicz.
