Tourist perils
The great thing about being a personal injury lawyer is that you can become a member of PEOPIL¹: an association of personal injury lawyers² from all kinds of countries. The great thing about PEOPIL is that this distinction does not matter. Within PEOPIL, the noses, including those of the British, are in the same direction: we are Europeans who like to learn from each other in order to do even better for our clients at home.
For this purpose, about three congresses are organized every year: one general congress and the other congresses have a more specific theme. Aimed at (cross-border) traffic accidents, product liability, medical liability and injuries of a tourist nature. For the latter topic, I traveled to Frankfurt in May of this year. There, a Spanish colleague explained the following to us.
Food poisonings
Remarkable were the figures we were presented with in this context. Spain, according to a British newspaper, would be the leader in contracting food poisoning, even though they have more Michelin-starred restaurants than in the United Kingdom. How could that be explained?
Well, some time ago, the Spanish legal system faced a large-scale fraud: a ‘claim ambulance’ operated by Britons drove around encouraging tourists to buy antibiotics in pharmacies and, upon their return, file a claim for food poisoning via an online form from this company. The receipt from the purchase of the antibiotics was used as proof. Initially, these claims were honored, until it began to get noticed. The gang was exposed and judges became very reluctant to award damages, even in justifiable cases. Thanks for that to these scammers.
Entertainment
But the tourist appears well protected when things go wrong on other fronts in Spain, for example during a game of ‘chair dance’ organized by a hotel. When there was one chair left for which two players were ‘fighting,’ the male player pulled the chair away just as the music stopped and the other, a woman, was just about to sit down. She fell to the floor, sustaining serious injuries to her back. The hotel and her insurer pointed to the man as the one who should pay for the damage. Obviously, he is liable, but the Coruna court ruled that the hotel was also liable for the damages. After all, the hotel had organized this activity for its own benefit, as sales at the bar certainly did not suffer. In such a case, the hotel should do everything possible to prevent such accidents, such as giving clear instructions, appointing a game director, excluding drunken participants from participating, etc. If the hotel fails to do so, it will also be liable for the damages suffered by the guests. Incidentally, under Dutch law, it is also conceivable that such a claim could be awarded, albeit apparently a lot duller in Dutch hotels, as Dutch case law is unlikely to find such a case.
After the requisite Frankfurters with green sauce and apple wine, I boarded the train towards Amsterdam a little wiser (and healthy) again.
If you have questions about this blog, please contact Mirella Hartman.
¹ Pan European Organization of Personal Injury Lawyer: www.Peopil.com.
² Actually, anyone interested can become a member: including scientists and students.