Widow wins right to sue Egyptian hotel in British court over husband’s safari tour death
BRITISH tourists injured abroad will be able to sue through a UK court, lawyers have said, after a woman fighting the Four Seasons hotel chain over her husband’s death won a Supreme Court case.
Lady Brownlie began legal action after her husband, Sir Ian Brownlie QC, 77, died with his daughter, Rebecca, in a road accident during a safari excursion in Egypt in 2010. The family had booked the chauffeur-driven tour through the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza, where they were staying. Lady Brownlie and Sir Ian’s two grandchildren were also injured in the crash.
The widow sued Four Seasons Holding Incorporated in 2012 but there followed years of legal tussles, partly prolonged because the wrong company in the hotel chain’s group was initially named as a defendant. Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the actual hotel operator, FS Cairo, which had argued that Britain’s High Court did not have jurisdiction to hear her legal claim because the crash happened in Egypt.
Lawyers for Lady Brownlie said the case had “significant implications for English nationals injured or killed whilst travelling overseas”. Her case can now be heard in the UK because the court accepted that the damage suffered by Lady Brownlie continued to affect her once she returned home.
Following the ruling, Terrence Donovan, Lady Brownlie’s solicitor, said: “The general principle now is if you are a UK national, you go abroad, you are injured while on holiday or killed and your losses – financial and physical – occur in this country, then the jurisdictional gateway is now open for you. Whereas before you weren’t sure if it was open or closed – now it is much more firmly open.”
Lady Brownlie is understood to have attended yesterday’s hearing in person.
Mr Donovan said: “She is delighted. She is astonishingly courageous, she has spent a great deal of money on this but she has never given up. She’s a very dignified, private person who brought this on an important point of principle, in her husband’s memory.”