Judge Dismisses Appeal against Award of Swimming Pool Injury Compensation

by | Oct 27, 2016

A High Court judge has dismissed an appeal against an award of swimming pool injury compensation and increased the value of the award by more than €8,000.

The award of swimming pool injury compensation was originally made to a thirty-two year old plaintiff who, in November 2011, dived into the pool at the West Wood Club in Dublin and broke her two upper front teeth. The plaintiff claimed swimming pool injury compensation and, in May 2015, was awarded €30,000 by Judge Jacqueline Linnane at the Circuit Civil Court.

The West Wood Club appealed the award – claiming that the plaintiff had contributed to her injury by not checking how deep the pool was before diving in. The appeal hearing took place earlier this week at the High Court before Mr Justice Seamus Noonan.

At the hearing, Judge Noonan was told that it had been the plaintiff´s first visit to the club as she was the guest of an existing member. The judge also heard that the pool was fifty metres in length, but had a depth throughout of just 1.35 metres. Counsel for the plaintiff explained that a pool of that length will often have a depth of 2 metre, at least at one end of the pool.

According to the plaintiff´s barrister, there were no signs by the poolside warning guests not to jump or dive into the pool, and it would not have been unreasonable for the plaintiff to believe that her actions were safe. Describing the signage as “woefully inadequate”, Judge Noonan said he did not accept West Wood´s claim that there was a lifeguard on duty at the time and dismissed the appeal against the award.

On hearing that the plaintiff had flown to Hungary after her accident to have crowns fitted to her broken teeth, and would likely need replacement crowns every five to ten years, judge Noonan increased the award of swimming pool injury compensation to €38,097 and said the West Wood Club was fortunate that the claim had not initially been brought in a court with a higher jurisdiction.

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