Woman gets $27k for injury at Abu Dhabi hotel

A guest who sustained injuries when a wooden shelf fell on her head at a luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi has been awarded AED100,000 US ($27,225) in compensation by a court.

The hotel, as well as a company charged with its management and a local insurance company, has been by the told by the Abu Dhabi Civil Appeals Court to make the payment for the incident, which occurred in July 2008, Khaleej Times reports.

According to the newspaper, the European woman had sought AED20 million (US $5.4 million) for the material and psychological damages.

However, the court ruled there was no connection between the accident and her claim that she was suffering from epilepsy; although the woman claimed she had lost her job due to the accident, the court also said she had “exaggerated” the impact of the injury, pointing out she had married and got another job since it happened.

It was claimed that, while she was placing her shoes in a wardrobe in her room, a wooden shelf shelf weighing 2.2 kilogrammes fell on her head.

She subsequently did not go to work for eight months and was terminated from her employment as a result of her absence.

The claimant had accused the hotel of causing the accident due to negligence in fixing the shelf. However, an engineering committee said the shelf would not have fallen on its own, and that there must have been a cause.