Fashion lecturer settles injury case

A fashion lecturer who claimed she lost her cherished career after she tripped on a broken concrete surface injuring her elbow has settled her High Court action for damages.

Patricia Keilthy is joint head of the fashion department at the Limerick School of Art and Design.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Michael White was told the case had been settled.

Ms Keilthy tripped and fell on her outstretched left hand after she entered the school campus via the back gate near Clare St, Limerick, five years ago.

The 58-year-old, from Meadowbrook, Castleconnell, Co Limerick, sued her employer Limerick Institute of Technology over injuries she sustained in the fall and St John’s Hospital, Limerick, over the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of her injury in June 2009.

Liability was conceded in the case which was before the court for assessment of damages only.

John O’Mahony SC said that on June 9, 2009, Ms Keilthy was at the Limerick School of Art and Design when she tripped and fell on a “dangerous and defective” broken concrete surface.

Ms Keilthy, he said, suffered a serious injury to her left arm and attended St John’s Hospital. He said a soft tissue injury was diagnosed but she had a very nasty fracture of the elbow. Counsel said Ms Keilthy was not told to follow through on the injury and she thought everything was ok.

However counsel said she suffered a lot of pain and at the end of July an MRI scan identified a particularly bad fracture of the elbow. Severe chronic regional pain syndrome was later diagnosed and counsel said Ms Keilthy has not worked since.