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Hotel ordered to pay damages

A woman who slipped on a party pie and injured her knee at a function at Wollongong’s Rydges Hotel five years ago has been awarded almost half a million dollars in compensation, according to the Illawarra Mercury.   

Rachel Hobby was attending a friend’s engagement party at the hotel on the evening in 2008, when she slipped on the pie, twisting her left knee as she fell. Doctors later diagnosed the unemployed, single mother with a torn anterior cruciate ligament which they said would require surgery to fix.

Ms Hobby launched legal action against the hotel’s owner, ECS Group (Aust) P/L in the NSW District Court, saying the company had been negligent in allowing the food to end up on the floor – a claim ECS Group denied.

In a judgment this month, judge Phillip Mahony found the hotel owner was liable for Ms Hobby’s injuries and ordered the company to pay $431,995 in compensation, as well as her legal bill.

Judge Mahony said staff were not adhering to the hotel’s policy of not serving food and drinks to guests on the dance floor and no-one was tasked with cleaning the floor during the night, according to the Illawarra Mercury.

He found the ECS Group ”breached its duty of care to the plaintiff [Ms Hobby] by allowing the food to remain on the dance floor” and had not taken ”reasonable care to avoid foreseeable injury”.

Ms Hobby sought $1.43million in damages including payment for current and future treatment expenses, help she would need around her home due to her injury and loss of future wage and superannuation earnings.

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