A female who caught the heel of her shoe in a hole on a travelator in a Dublin shopping centre has been awarded €13.150 in travelator compensation for a fall on a moving walkway after a hearing at the Circuit Civil Court.
Nuala Holloway Casey (60) from Blackrock in Dublin claimed for shopping centre compensation against Secret Retail Holdings (trading as Superquinn Shopping Centre) and Kine (Ireland) Limited, travelator and escalator fitters, of Ballymount, County Dublin, after being inflicted with an ankle injury at the Superquinn Shopping Centre in December 2007.
Judge Barry Hickson in the Circuit Civil Court was informed that in December 2007, Nuala hit the ground badly after she caught her high heel shoe in a hole at the top to a descending moving walkway – damaging her left ankle. The court was told that she still felt pain in the ankle and had no choice but to give up playing tennis because of the injury.
As liability in the case had already been accepted by the by the joint defendants the only argument remaining was the final amount of compensation to be awarded for a fall on a moving walkway. This was in dispute as Ms Holloway Casey had failed to seek medical treatment for 10 days after the incident occurred and exacerbated her injury by a separate fall in 2009.
After reviewing the medical testimony in support of the compensation claim, Judge Hickson awarded the former Miss Ireland €12,000 supermarket travelator compensation for the fall on the moving walkway plus a separate €1,250 to make up for the costs she had incurred which were directly attributable to her accident.