A woman who caught the heel of her shoe in a hole on a travelator in a Dublin shopping centre has been awarded €13.150 in compensation for a fall on a moving walkway after a hearing at the Circuit Civil Court.
Nuala Holloway Casey (60) from Blackrock in Dublin brought her action against Secret Retail Holdings (trading as Superquinn Shopping Centre) and Kine (Ireland) Limited, travelator and escalator fitters, of Ballymount, County Dublin, after suffering an ankle injury at the Superquinn Shopping Centre in December 2007.
Judge Barry Hickson in the Circuit Civil Court heard that on December 21st 2007, Nuala had caught the high heel of her shoe in a hole at the entrance to a descending moving walkway and fallen heavily – damaging her left ankle. Nuala told the court that she still suffered pain in the ankle and had been forced to give up playing tennis because of the injury.
The court also heard that liability for the injury had been admitted by the joint defendants but how much compensation for a fall on a moving walkway Nuala should receive was in dispute as Nuala had failed to visit her doctor for 10 days after the accident and exacerbated her injury by a separate fall in 2009.
After reviewing the medical evidence in support of Nuala´s claim, Judge Hickson awarded the former Miss Ireland €12,000 compensation for the fall on the moving walkway plus an additional €1,250 to account for the expenses she had incurred which were directly attributable to her accident.