A Garda sergeant who injured her back when a chair collapsed under her has been awarded almost €37,000 damages against the State.
Sgt Catherine Moran told the Circuit Civil Court yesterday that she hit her back off the floor and her head off a radiator when the back legs of a stacking chair broke under her weight.
She told her counsel, Gary McCarthy, the accident had occurred in Whitehall Garda station, Dublin, on November 25th, 1997.
Sgt Moran (45) said she had been off work for almost a year and after returning to light duties had become "so down" that she had taken a career break of a year.
She told Circuit Court president Mr Justice Matthew Deery she had gone to Westchester, New York, with her children to join her husband, an American citizen, who had obtained a job there after retiring from the Garda in November 2001.
Sgt Moran, Seabury Crescent, Malahide, Co Dublin, told Ricardo Dourado, counsel for the Minister for Justice, that while in the United States she had not wanted to take her children out of school there to return home and later extended her career break to five years.
She said her career break ended in September next when she intended to return to working as a Garda sergeant.
She said she had suffered serious pain for up to three years after the accident and while it had since abated with physiotherapy, cortisone injections and pain control, she still suffered intermittently from the back injury.
Judge Deery said that while in the United States, Sgt Moran had treated herself, apart from a relapse of pain in 2005 when she had to take another course of physiotherapy there.
Awarding her €25,000 general damages and €11,899 special damages, Judge Deery said he accepted Sgt Moran's evidence that the first three years had been a very bad period for her.