A 23-YEAR-OLD woman told a judge yesterday that she took painkillers so she could go to discos and “get on with her life” following an accident in a night club.
Ciara Byrne, of Finglas Park, Finglas West, Dublin, was awarded €8,000 damages against Drogheda Lodge Ltd., which trades in Main Street, Finglas, as The Full Shilling, for negligence and breach of duty.
“I wasn’t going to lie down as if my life was over,” Ms Byrne said in the Circuit Civil Court.
“Of course I went to discos afterwards and I had to take painkillers, including Solpadeine prescribed by my doctor, so that I could dance.”
Conor Kearney told the court Ms Byrne had been returning from the smoking area at 2am in the nightclub on January 23rd, 2011, when she slipped and fell backwards on a liquid spillage, injuring her back.
Ms Byrne said that immediately after her fall she had seen a cleaner with a mop but there had been no wet-floor warning sign that might have alerted her to potential danger.
She said she had later attended her doctor who had prescribed Paracetamol painkilling tablets as well as recommending Solpadeine which she had been able to buy over the counter.
Declan Wade, counsel for the nightclub, told her in cross-examination that she had been video recorded disco dancing in The Full Shilling club only five months after her alleged back injury and moving about apparently pain free.
He said the pain did not, in the video, seem to have been causing her a problem dancing.
“I’m a 23-year-old girl and obviously I’m going to go out and enjoy myself. I’m not going to lie down. I used pain-killers to get me through, including the disco dancing,” she said.
She denied that she had been wearing very high heeled shoes.
Awarding her €8,000 damages and costs, Circuit Court president, Mr Justice Matthew Deery, said the bar manager had conceded there had been a spillage and mopping up operation in the area of Ms Byrne’s fall on the night.