Student Awarded Compensation for Hot Curry Burns

by | Apr 29, 2013

A Dublin student has been awarded €9,464 in compensation for hot curry burns after a hearing at the Circuit Civil Court.

John Patrick Starrs (32) of Tallaght, Dublin, brought his claim for hot curry burns compensation after scalding his hand on sauce provided with a takeaway meal purchased from the Kings Garden Chinese restaurant on Main Street, Tallaght in June 2010.

Circuit Court President, Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, heard in court that Mr Starrs had purchased the meal to be shared between himself and some friends and, as he was being dropped off at his home, Mr Starrs placed his hand inside the brown paper bag to retrieve his share of the meal.

However, the hot curry sauce provided with the meal had leaked from the polystyrene cup it had been packaged in, and the heat from the sauce gave Mr Starrs a severe burn to the back of his hand. Judge Groake was told that, despite running cold water over the burn, the back of Mr Starrs´ hand had turned red and he had experienced difficulty sleeping that night.

The following day Mr Starrs visited his GP, who applied a cream and referred him to Tallaght Hospital. At the hospital, the plaintiff had dressings applied to the blisters which had developed on his hand and was given a course of antibiotics to prevent an infection from developing. Mr Starrs told the court that he attended the hospital´s wound management department on several further occasions and still experiences discolouration of the skin and pain in cold weather.

After seeking legal advice, Mr Starrs made a compensation claim for burns from hot curry sauce on the grounds that the Kings Garden restaurant had been negligent by providing him with a defective cup on which the lid had become loose. The restaurant denied their liability, but in court Judge Groarke found in the plaintiffs favour – initially awarding him €12,000 in compensation for hot curry burns, but reducing it by almost a quarter to €9,464 to account for Mr Starrs´ contributory negligence of not looking into the bag before placing his hand in it.

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