Boy awarded €35K for Broken Leg, suffered falling through trampoline

The court heard that an forensic engineer had examined the trampoline and was of the opinion that the method used for securing the safety pad was inadequate.

That seems pretty straight forward to me.

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

That seems pretty straight forward to me.

Would it not make more sense for the manufacturer to be held accountable? Surely the likes of Smyths can't run safety tests indvidually on every single product they sell, whereas manufacturers should do this?

newport2 wrote: »

Would it not make more sense for the manufacturer to be held accountable?

The manufacturer could be a Chinese company that's no longer answering the phone. So there's no one other than Smyths to sue.

I would have thought the manufacturer would be responsible for any design or manufacturing faults. There may be more to the case like Smyths just buying any old cheap crap they come across and have made no efforts to check if it's safe.

That's why I like to buy European products with European safety standards like TUV or the Kitemark, it shows the company involved has made efforts to make their product safe and there is a process already in place should anything go wrong.

bobmalooka wrote: »

It's very simple, the contract for the goods was with smyths.

Smyths probably would be able to sue the company who made the trampoline but they won't, they'll get €35k knocked off their next bill instead.

Hopefully the kid is ok and the trampoline manufacturers correct the design issue.

Does it say anywhere how old the trampoline was? I'd have thought any piece of equipment is going to fail at some point, and trampolines typically go through a lot of abuse with little or no maintenance. I'm surprised shops still sell them, given the potential for these kinds of incidents & cases.

I dislocated my kneecap on a trampoline years ago. My cousin broke her elbow on the same trampoline. Hmmmm..

anncoates wrote: »

What would people recommend for greasing the surface of a child's trampoline?

A call from social services.

mikemac1 wrote: »

Did you hear about the Dublin Bus that had 50 passengers on board and crashed in Fairview?

When the emergency services showed up there were 100 passengers on the bus

Do tell. Claim would not go anywhere without proof you were on board.

Seems a pretty standard compensation sum for the injury. The Injury's Board have a range of €15,400 to €35,600 for a fractured lower leg if it has "substantially recovered". It includes fractures to both the fibula and tibia (the latter being more serious). The child had both, taking nine months to recover, so it would be on the upper end of the scale.

To go through the IB/PIAB, the party has to have admitted liability, and only be disputing the amount. There's no need for solicitors, it's a fairly modest fee. It would've all been sorted at least a year earlier, too. Smyth's chose to dispute the negligence claim, however, and it ended up costing them more in the long run (settled for slightly more in the end, solicitor costs etc.).

Greenmachine wrote: »

I raise you €1.78M.





No mention of broken limbs, or longterm injuries.

But there was a mention of a "severe head injury". You also left out some key elements of that article, which you conveniently didn't give a link for.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/settlement-of-178m-approved-for-girl-who-fell-from-school-bus-window-30777360.html

"a young girl sustained a severe head injury when she fell out of the back window of a school bus"

"Four girls - Sarah Lawlor, Claire McGrath, Bernadette Nicholson, and Saoirse McWalters - fell onto the road as the back window fell out and crashed onto the road."

"Judge Fahy found Bus Eireann guilty of being the owner of a vehicle with a defect that was a danger to the public and that could have been discovered through the exercise of ordinary care.

She did not accept that pressure by the children alone would have been enough to cause the window to slip out."


It seems that she's very lucky to be alive, never mind without serious brain damage.

Littlekittylou wrote: »

I only got health insurance in recent years anyway. I think it's the only insurance policy I have. It's rubbish.

Until something goes wrong. You can go decades without ever using it but when something serious does go wrong you'll be damn glad to have it.

Then the company should be made to recall all models of that trampoline and be compliant with better safety standards.

That's probably not going to happen, people don't care about safety when they're in the shop, all they care about is the lowest price. The shop could bring in something safe that's twice the price but no one would buy it. From a financial point of view it's better to sell the cheap one, sell loads of them and deal with the fallout as they can share the fallout with the supplier.

My Dad got injured playing football and would never have dreamt of claiming. He even got physio. Still didn't claim.

That's because back then people didn't like to publicly announce stupid mistakes they make.

Greenmachine wrote: »

I had intended to link to the article. Judge are idiots.

The judge didn't award the €1.78M. That was a settlement between the parties.

I am not debating the fact that she was injured.. The article fails horrendously to quantify what her serious head injuries were.

Articles on cases tend to be all too lacking on very important details in a case. It's hard to summarise in a few hundred words a case that likely has hundreds, possibly thousands of pages of evidence. That's why you shouldn't put all your weight behind them to criticise a judge, when you've only read one article and he's read the hundreds of pages of evidence.

I was pointed out the fact that from the article the judge seem to have given not enough weight to the client negligence being a contributory factor in her injuries.

It's possible that, had there not been a settlement, the High Court justice would've held contributory negligence. In which case, a percentage would have been put on the plaintiff's fault and the award reduced by that amount. It's hard to fully judge the judge without a) witnessing the case first hand or b) reading his judgment.

I'm not sure if something like this would get a reported judgment, but if it does, you might find it on courts.ie

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

The judge didn't award the €1.78M. That was a settlement between the parties.


Articles on cases tend to be all too lacking on very important details in a case. It's hard to summarise in a few hundred words a case that likely has hundreds, possibly thousands of pages of evidence. That's why you shouldn't put all your weight behind them to criticise a judge, when you've only read one article and he's read the hundreds of pages of evidence.

It's possible that, had there not been a settlement, the High Court justice would've held contributory negligence. In which case, a percentage would have been put on the plaintiff's fault and the award reduced by that amount. It's hard to fully judge the judge without a) witnessing the case first hand or b) reading his judgment.

I'm not sure if something like this would get a reported judgment, but if it does, you might find it on courts.ie

You have raised some very good points.