A claim for burns from hot food has been settled after a hearing at the Circuit Civil Court.
John Patrick Starrs (32) of Tallaght in Dublin brought his compensation claim for burns from hot food after scalding his hand on curry sauce provided with a takeaway meal purchased from the Kings Garden Chinese restaurant in Tallaght in June 2010.
Circuit Court President, Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, was told in court that Mr Starrs had bought the takeaway meal to be distributed between himself and some friends and, as he was being dropped off at his home, Mr Starrs put his hand inside the bag into which the meal had been placed to retrieve his share.
As he did so, hot curry sauce which had leaked from a polystyrene cup gave Mr Starrs a severe burn to the back of his hand. Judge Groake was told that, despite running cool water over the burn, the back of Mr Starrs´ hand turned red and, as a result of his injury, Mr Starrs had experienced difficulty sleeping that night.
The following day the plaintiff visited his GP, who applied a burn cream and referred Mr Starrs to Tallaght Hospital. At the hospital, Mr Starrs had dressings applied to the blisters which had developed on his hand and was given a course of antibiotics to prevent an infection from developing.
Mr Starrs told the court that he attended the hospital´s wound management centre on several further occasions but despite the treatment he had received for his injury still experiences discolouration of the skin on the back of his hand and pain in cold weather.
After seeking legal advice, Mr Starrs made a compensation claim for burns from hot food on the grounds that the Kings Garden restaurant had been negligent by providing the hot curry sauce in a defective cup on which the lid had become loose.
The Kings Garden restaurant denied their liability, but in court Judge Groarke found in the Mr Starrs favour – initially awarding him €12,000 in compensation for burns from hot food, but reducing it to €9,464 to account for Mr Starrs´ contributory negligence of not looking into the bag before placing his hand into it.