€20,000 for boy who walked into bollard
A seven-year-old boy who lacerated his left eyebrow when his head hit a bollard while walking with his mum at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre has been awarded €20,000 damages in the Circuit Civil Court.
Grainne Berkery, counsel for Conor Askin, who is now 13, said the boy’s claim was based on the inadequacy of lighting at a taxi rank on the south side of the centre where the bollard was situated alongside a footpath.
Conor, who lives at Ravenwood Crescent, Clonee, Dublin 15, sued Green Property Investment Fund, Fitzwilliam Square West, Dublin, owners of the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, through his mother Tracie Askin.
Ms Askin told Circuit Court president Mr Justice Raymond Groarke that she and her two sons were walking along the footpath on the night of November 20, 2012, when Conor caught the top side of a bollard with his left eyebrow.
Ms Berkery, who appeared with Mason Hayes and Curran Solicitors, said he had been taken to the emergency department of Temple Street Children’s Hospital where a laceration to his eyebrow had been closed with medical glue and paper stitches. She said he had been left with a scar almost an inch long which, fortunately, remained partly hidden by his eyebrow.
Awarding Conor damages of €20,000, Judge Groarke said the court had to decide if reasonable care had been taken by the defendant to make sure that all people using the footpath were alerted to the fact that there was a bollard actually constructed in the footpath which was something for users of the path to see and avoid.
The court heard that the centre was opened in 1996, with the bollard in place since then without incident, until the 2012 accident. The bollards were put in place to stop motorists parking on footpaths.
