Judgments | A woman slipped in the yard and lost her ability to work: the Court of Appeal decided on compensation for millions after more than a decade

Vaasa the Court of Appeal gave its decision in the case of a woman who slipped in the yard, which has been dealt with in court for more than ten years.

The Court of Appeal stuck to the district court’s earlier verdict and rejected the appeals of Pohjola Insurance and Keski-Suomen Opiskelija-asunsäätiö (Koas) regarding the accident in Jyväskylä, which took place in March 2013.

At that time, the 23-year-old student was going out for a run in winter running shoes. The woman fell in an unsanded part of the yard and hit the back of her head on the icy ground. The woman took the accident to the district courtbecause according to him, the yard had not been sanded.

The District Court of Central Finland found that the woman suffered a mild brain injury and a whiplash injury from the accident, which did not heal. The injuries caused the woman to be completely unable to work.

District Court sentenced Pohjola Insurance and Koas to pay more than two million euros in compensation to the woman in March of last year.

The amount was considered to correspond to the monthly earnings that the woman would have earned after graduating with a master’s degree in economics from her calculated working career until her old-age pension.

The woman had to leave her studies in November 2015, before graduating.

North The insurance and Koas appealed the decision. According to the complaint, the slip was normal and it denied that the woman’s symptoms and injuries were caused by the fall.

In the complaint, the injuries were considered to be related to the woman’s previous medical history. The interruption of studies due to the accident was also questioned.

The Court of Appeal upheld the verdict and considered that there was no other explanatory factor for the woman’s after-effects than the brain and neck injury she received in the fall accident.

“The Court of Appeal has examined the correctness of the district court’s decision [nimi] in terms of compensation awarded as well as reimbursement of medical costs and other expenses, and there has been no reason to change them,” the decision states.

Pohjola Insurance therefore has to pay compensation up to the first million euros. Koas is responsible for the amount exceeding that, i.e. well over a million euros.