€18k for woman who cut foot on broken pot in restaurant

A FORMER restaurant manager who cut her left foot on a broken flower pot base plate while working in a hotel has been awarded more than €18,000 damages in the Circuit Civil Court.

Angela Gamble, 31, said the restaurant was busy on the day in question 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.

Ms Gamble told her barrister, Imogen McGrath, that when she looked down, she saw the broken ceramic base plate of a heavy flower pot under a chair.

Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke heard that Ms Gamble took her shoe off and put her foot in a bucket of ice that a colleague had brought from the kitchen.

Ms Gamble, of Mornington Tower, Mornington, Co. Meath, said she was driven to the VHI clinic in Swords, Co. Dublin, where a laceration to her foot was stitched.

She told the court the incident happened before lunchtime in May 2012 as she was setting up the restaurant at Roganstown Hotel & Country Club, Naul Road, Swords, Co. Dublin.

Barrister Ms McGrath said the wound later became infected and her client had needed to take antibiotics. The court heard that Ms Gamble was off work for several weeks.

Ms Gamble, who now works as a conference manager at the Carlton Hotel, Dublin Airport, sued her ex-employer – Nethercross Ltd, which trades as Rogan- stown Golf & Country Club Hotel – for negligence.

The hotel, which had delivered a full defence to Ms Gamble’s claim, denied liability and claimed she had been guilty of contributory negligence.

It alleged that she had been moving the flower pot with a colleague when the base plate cracked and broke.

It claimed that Ms Gamble’s injury arose when she kicked the broken piece with her foot.

Judge Groarke said he found Ms Gamble to be a compelling witness and was satisfied that she had given a correct account of what had happened.

Awarding Ms Gamble €18,775 damages, the judge said the wound had left a nasty permanent scar and she suffered some degree of disability in her foot.