‘Pain-racked’ mum hurls a 5ft Xmas tree
A MUM who tried to claim £650,000 in loss of earnings for car crash injuries had her case tossed out of court after a damning picture showed her winning a Christmas tree throwing contest.
Kamila Grabska, 36, maintained she could not work, play with her children or do basic chores because of back and neck pain after a vehicle she was in was hit from behind in 2017.
But a judge dismissed her case after being shown a newspaper photo, taken nearly a year later, of the mum of two hurling the 5ft spruce to victory in the charity contest.
Footage from last November also showed Grabska training her large dog in a park for more than an hour.
Grabska, who sued RSA Insurance for loss of past and future earnings, told the Irish High Court that while she looked happy in the contest pictures, she was still suffering and endured pain to this day.
But Judge Carmel Stewart said the “very graphic picture” of her launching the winter fir helped her make up her mind to throw out the claim.
Sitting in Limerick, she ruled: “It is a very large, natural Christmas tree and it is being thrown by her in a very agile movement. I’m afraid I cannot but conclude the claims were entirely exaggerated.”
The court heard Grabska, of Ennis, Co Clare, told doctors that her post-crash injuries were so severe she could not lift a heavy bag without shooting pain.
She even said her husband sometimes had to bring medication to her in bed, which she could not leave for half of the day.
But the court heard that a few days before informing doctors, she triumphed in the 2018 tree contest.