Pedestrian injured by falling fat cat sues pet owner

A MAN who was hit on the head by a 13lb cat that dropped from an eighthfloor balcony in Turin in northern Italy is suing the pet’s owner for personal injury.

The 56-year-old man, who has not been named, was strolling along a street when the fat feline fell from its owner’s apartment and landed on top of him. The animal died in the accident.

The pedestrian, who was on his way to a market, suffered serious trauma to

‘You wouldn’t expect to end up in hospital with a neck trauma because a cat had fallen on you’

his neck and vertebrae and is suing the owner for damages.

The female owner of the tabby is to appear in court next week, accused of failing to control her cat and inadvertently causing injury to the man. She has already been fined by municipal authorities for failing to control the cat.

The incident happened in July last year in Turin’s Via Tripoli. However, as is often the way with Italy’s slow judicial system, the case has only just come to court.

“The story is surreal but true,” commented one Italian newspaper, La Repubblicca. “You wouldn’t expect to end up in hospital with a neck trauma because a cat had fallen on you.”

The unfortunate accident evoked parallels with a Graham Greene short story, A Shocking Accident, in which a prep school boy is called into his housemaster’s office to be told that his father has been killed after a pig fell on him in a street in Naples. After telling his schoolmates the story, the boy was given the nickname “Pig”.