Euro 13,500 award over ceiling collapse

Ms Karen Browne (24) and her partner, Mr Wayne Cotteril, were asleep in bed when the ceiling collapsed on top of them, a court…

Ms Karen Browne (24) and her partner, Mr Wayne Cotteril, were asleep in bed when the ceiling collapsed on top of them, a court heard yesterday.

Experts told Judge Katherine Delahunt in the Circuit Civil Court that the couple had been hit by an estimated 200 lbs of plaster and debris in Ms Browne's rented apartment.

Mr Cotteril, who previously settled a personal injuries claim against landlords Mr Michael McGowan and Ms Attracta McGowan, told the court he was not as badly hurt as Ms Browne and had immediately called an ambulance for her.

Ms Browne, a clerk in Brown Thomas's store, Grafton Street, Dublin, said she and Mr Cotteril had been asleep in bed at about 6 a.m. when the ceiling came down on September 10th, 1998.

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"I remember hearing a big loud bang and debris falling on top of me with force," she said. "I didn't know what had happened until Wayne said the ceiling had collapsed." She said they went into a neighbouring apartment in the house at Jones's Road, Drumcondra, Dublin. She had been hit on her legs and lower back.

Ms Browne said she had been x-rayed and treated for pain in the Mater Hospital. She said she had no idea what had caused the ceiling to fall. She never had any reason to complain to her landlords during the three months she had lived in the apartment.

Mr McGowan told the court he had redecorated the flat and had painted the ceiling just before Ms Browne moved in. At that time the ceiling was 100 per cent. Judge Delahunt said the McGowans owed a high duty of care to people renting their property and she had no doubt they were good landlords. "But I believe Mr McGowan overestimates his expertise in the physical management of this property, which is a 100-year-old house," she said.

Awarding Ms Browne €13,500 damages she said she had undoubtedly suffered injury to her lower back from which she had made a good, if slow, recovery.