A 31-YEAR-old former restaurant manager who cut her left foot on a broken flower pot base plate while working in a Co Dublin hotel has been awarded more than €18,000 damages in the Circuit Civil Court.
Angela Gamble told the court the incident happened before lunchtime in May 2012 as she was setting up the restaurant in Roganstown Hotel & Country Club, Naul Road, Swords, Co Dublin.
She said today that the restaurant was busy that day and that she was walking to get some cutlery when she felt a pinch in her foot and saw blood coming out of her shoe.
Gamble told her barrister, Imogen McGrath, that when she looked down, she saw the broken ceramic base plate of a heavy flower pot underneath a chair.
Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke heard Gamble took her shoe off and put her foot in a bucket of ice a colleague had brought from the kitchen.
Gamble, of Mornington Tower, Mornington, Co Meath, said she was driven to the VHI clinic in Swords, where a laceration to her foot was stitched.
McGrath said the wound later became infected and that her client had needed to take antibiotics. The court heard Gamble was off work for several weeks.
Negligence
Gamble, who now works as a conference manager at the Carlton Hotel, Dublin Airport, sued her ex-employer, Nethercross Ltd, which trades as Roganstown Golf & Country Club Hotel, for negligence.
The hotel, which had delivered a full defence to Gamble’s claim, denied liability and claimed she had been guilty of contributory negligence.
It alleged she had been moving the flower pot with a colleague when the base plate cracked and broke. It claimed Gamble’s injury arose when she kicked the broken piece with her foot.
Judge Groarke said he found Gamble to be a compelling witness and was satisfied she had given a correct account of what had happened.
Awarding Gamble €18,775 damages, the judge said the wound had left a nasty permanent scar and that she suffered some degree of disability in her foot.
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