Mother who put her children in Tesco trolley which toppled loses €60,000 damages claim
Mother who put her children in Tesco trolley which toppled loses €60,000 damages claim
A
mother who overloaded her shopping trolley with her children and
injured herself in a fall, has lost a €60,000 damages claim against her
local Tesco.
Forensic
engineer Stephen Mooney told Judge James O’Donohoe in the Circuit Civil
court yesterday that by putting her children, aged three and six, on
the trolley Patricia Martin had destabilised it and caused it to topple.
Martin
claimed she had injured both her knees and her left thigh when the
trolley knocked her down while she tried to protect her two children
from hitting the trolley ramp.
She
told the court that she had carried out a shopping at Tesco, Churchview
Road, Ballybrack, Co Dublin, in July 2014 and was leaving the store
with her goods, and her three-year-old son and six-year-old daughter
seated on the trolley, when the accident happened.
Martin,
of Oakton Park, Ballybrack, claimed the accident had been caused by a
deficiency in the trolley or in the ramp leading from the store to the
car park. She said she had been pushing the trolley when it had suddenly
overturned.
Mooney
told the court that CCTV coverage of the incident revealed that Martin
had been approaching the ramp with her trolley side-on to it when the
accident occurred. He said there had been problem with either the
trolley or the ramp.
He
said the trolley provided seating for two toddlers of a combined weight
of no more than 19 kilos but, between them, Martin’s two children
weighed 36 kilos, just under twice the recommended weight maximum.
“The
extra weight of the children would certainly have destabilized the
trolley,” he told barrister Frank Martin, counsel for Tesco, who
appeared with Declan O’Flaherty of Tormeys Solicitors.
Judge
O’Donohoe, dismissing Martin’s claim and awarding costs against her,
said it was reckless of her to have put both children on the trolley and
she had been the author of her own misfortune.
Neither the trolley or ramp had breached any safety regulation.
Comments
Post a Comment