A woman, who suffered facial injuries when she walked into a shop shutter, has had her compensation claim for an accident in a newsagents settled at the Circuit Civil Court in Dublin.
Yvonne McEvoy (42) from Clondalkin, Dublin, had been shopping in Tuthill´s Newsagents in the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre when, in October 2010, she was distracted by a Halloween display as she was leaving the shop and walked into a partly closed shutter.
The shutter, Judge Jacqueline Linnane at the Circuit Civil Court was told, was often partly closed as the shop was about to shut to dissuade new customers from entering, but Yvonne failed to hear the warning shouted to her by a shop assistant and walked straight into it – sustaining an injury to the left side of her face.
Judge Jacqueline Linnane heard from forensic engineer Alan Conlon that CCTV video of the incident showed a previous customer ducking underneath the shutter as he left the shop, but that Yvonne was looking to her right as she walked towards the exit. The judge also heard that Yvonne had fallen pregnant in 2011 and was unable to take painkillers to ease the pain.
Finding Tuthill´s Newsagents negligent by lowering the shutter while there were still customers in the shop, Judge Jacqueline Linnane found in favour of Yvonne and awarded her 17,500 Euros in settlement of her compensation claim for an accident in a newsagents.