Meath woman awarded €38k after holiday sun lounger collapse
02/05/2012 - 14:32:19A 74-year-old widow, who spent most of a sun holiday in her hotel bedroom after having been injured when a sun lounger collapsed underneath her, has been awarded €38,000 damages against the hotel.
Mary Lee told the Circuit Civil Court in Dublin today that on the August 17, 2008 she was sitting by the swimming pool of the four-star Hotel Galeazzi, near Brescia in Italy.
Barrister Timothy Sheehan said that Ms Lee, of Clongill, Donaghpatrick, Navan, Co Meath, who was on her third day of a week holiday with her husband, had just sat on a foldable sun lounger when it collapsed.
Ms Lee, who sued the travel agency which had arranged her holiday, said that she had struck her head on the concrete and felt immediate pain. She said she was confused and disorientated. She was taken to the local Accident & Emergency hospital.
She told travel agency barrister Shane English that X-rays revealed no fracture but she sustained a severe soft tissue injury to the back of her head and also pain in her neck, shoulders and lower back. She had been detained for several hours in the hospital and was prescribed painkillers.
She said that she spent the rest of her holiday in her bedroom and attended her GP when she returned to Ireland, as the pain had continued. She was prescribed strong painkillers that she has been taking since then.
Mr English said The Travel Department agency, of Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, denied liability and had brought the hotel, trading as Blu Hotels Spa, of Brescia, Italy, into the proceedings as a third-party defendant.
Mr English said the hotel, which denied liability, had not offered to take over the defence of the claim.
Judge Jacqueline Linnane, hearing that Ms Lee had ongoing and continuous pain, said she awarded the damages against the agency, which, she ruled, was entitled to be fully indemnified by the hotel for the €38,000 award and the legal costs.
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