Accident compensation news

Personal injury solicitors help kitchen worker claim

A woman who fractured her wrist and ankle after becoming scared by a faulty coffee machine has been awarded more than £60,000 in injury compensation.

Helen Given, 60, decided to contact personal injury solicitors and make an accident claim against James Watt College, Greenock, after a faulty drinks machine caused her to jump back in shock and injure herself.

The kitchen assistant claims that the machine started to make a hissing sound and began spurting out jets of steam. When an electric flash went off, she jumped back in shock and suffered serious personal injuries in a fall.

At the Court of Session, Lord Emsile said, "I must confess to entertaining some doubts as to the inherent plausibility of her account. Judged according to common experience, it is not easy to imagine how someone alarmed by a flash from inside a machine could have contrived to fall so badly.

"Truth is, as the saying goes, often stranger than fiction, and in the whole circumstances I am ultimately unable to say that her account of the incident is either impossible, or so inherently improbable that it cannot be accepted. On the balance of probabilities, I am prepared to accept her account as substantially accurate."

With the help of personal injury solicitors, Mrs Given was awarded a total of £60,426 in accident compensation.