A 23-stone company director, injured when his new high-back swivel chair collapsed under him, has been awarded £12,680 damages against an office furniture supplier.
Mr Eddie Toner (38), of Esmondale, Naas, Co Kildare, told Judge Bryan McMahon in the Dublin Circuit Civil Court that he was physically hurt and very embarrassed when the gaslift swivel chair collapsed while he conducted an interview with a potential employee in May, 1996. He said the interviewee sniggered when he fell backwards, his feet trapped under his desk, and his head hit the wall behind him.
Mr Toner had chosen the chair the previous week at Office City Ltd, Ballymount Industrial Estate, Dublin, and assembled it himself on delivery.
On the day, he said he had been sitting normally on the chair, which "smashed into four or five parts and the seat fractured". Judge McMahon found there had been a breach of warranty guaranteeing the chair would be adequate for the purpose for which it was intended - to sit in.
