Waitress Awarded €50,000 Compensation for Broken Glass Injury

A woman who was working as a waitress when she sustained a hand injury as the glass she was polishing broke has been awarded €50,000 compensation at the Circuit Civil Court.

Daniela Tricolici (24) was, according to Judge John O’Connor, not given adequate safety training prior to polishing wine glasses for her then employer Ravellos Restaurant in Clonsilla in 2015.

Judge O’Connor deemed that the employer, ABE Restaurant Limited, Weaver’s Row, Clonsilla, had been negligent by not providing proper training for Ms Tricolici.

Ms Tricolici, with at an address at Ravenswood Road Clonsilla, is now employed in a bank. The court was informed that the woman punctured
er left little finger when the stem of the glass she was polishing broke. The incident took place on September 18, 2015.

Speaking in court, forensic engineer Conor Murphy advised the Judgethat Ms Tricolici had given him a demonstration of how she was polishing the glass with a towel when the accident occurred. He said that training should have been provided to show Ms Tricolici how to do so safely. Instead, according to Mr Murphy, Ms Tricolici had held the base of the wine glass in one hand while polishing the bowl with her other hand. She polished the glass in a twist and turn fashion when the stem had broken.

Barrister for the plaintiff, Conor Kearney, argued that the waitress had clearly been polishing the glass in the correct fashion and should have been stopped by her employer and shown how to do it correctly.  He said that if Ms Tricolici had been grasping the bowl of the glass in one hand while using the polishing cloth with her other hand it was more than probable that the glass would not have broken and injured her as it did on the day in question.

Legal counsel for the defendant claimed this that there is no dedicated provision in legislation or a manual focused on safe glass polishing. Along with this it was claimed that it would be placing a huge burden on an employer to ask them to train someone when there was no accepted official training regime or accepted pattern of training available on how a particular task should be completed.

After the incident the woman was taken to Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, for the wound to be medically assessed and treated. Here it was found that she had been left with a small wound and that damage to a nerve in her finger had not properly rehabilitated. She still experiences hypersensitivity in the area of the injury.

Judge O’Connor awarded Ms Tricolici €25,000 personal injury compensation, saying: “I am satisfied on the balance of probability that the defendant in this case was negligent. There was no training provided and it should have been.”