A cautionary tale now from Huércal de Almería, where local lady María del Carmen G. has just received a court decision ruling on a compensation claim from a fall in (wait for it) 2005.
It seems María was crossing on a zebra crossing one fateful day when a car screeched round the corner and raced down the road at her. Rather than stand there and be run over by the louts, she legged it across the road, where she got her foot trapped under a broken tile and fell over, breaking her leg.
After a mere five years, the administrative court in Almería has finally gotten around to looking at her complaint against the townhall.
The Judge, however, appears less than sympathetic.
The cause of her fall was not necessarily the broken tile, but rather the excessive speed at which the lady was running. Normal use of the crossing would not put the pedestrian in danger, and if there had been a warning light or traffic lights, the incident would still have carried out as it did ruled the Hon. Judge. Therefore it was María’s responsability to look where she was running, if she wished to use the sidewalk in an unsafe fashion.
Despite ruling that the sidewalk was unsafe, and that there weren’t any indications of the danger, the local townhall has been exonerated of all blame.
María, who admitted that she was shocked by the incident, told Ideal that “I don’t know what the Law says, but I know what common sense dictates”. (El Ideal)
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