Damages due after Sydney carpark horror
A woman who watched her husband reverse their car over the edge of a second-storey parking lot and plummet to his death is owed a "substantial" payout, a NSW Supreme Court judge says.
Michelle Lee and her husband Thomas Lee were heading out for a family dinner in Haymarket, in inner Sydney on March 5 2006.
But a pleasant evening out turned to horror after Ms Lee stepped out of the couple's Toyota Camry and Mr Lee went to adjust the car's position on the second level of a multi-storey carpark owned by the Carlton Crest Hotel.
"(Ms Lee) heard the engine rev and saw the car reverse towards a metal railing that was the perimeter barrier for that part of the car park," Justice Robert Beech-Jones said in a decision handed down on Friday.
"To her horror the barrier disintegrated and the car fell off the edge.
"She rushed to the ground floor.
"She found her husband fatally injured. He never regained consciousness and was later pronounced dead."
Ms Lee's life was irrevocably altered, the judge said, and she has now sued for "nervous shock".
"As a result of her husband's death Ms Lee has suffered an almost complete psychological collapse affecting every part of her life, including her promising career as a speech pathologist," Justice Beech-Jones said.
"It follows from my findings that her damages will be substantial."
The judge found the hotel was negligent, in part because a wheel stop in the parking space was not properly affixed to the carpark floor, and "did not provide the tactile resistance that Mr Lee was expecting" when he accelerated back into the parking space.
He also described the perimeter railing that Mr Lee crashed through as "grossly inadequate".
Ms Lee, in a statement to police in the aftermath of the accident, said the barrier did nothing to slow her husband's fatal descent.
"The car just went straight through it. I saw the car flip, but I don't know how many times," she said.
Justice Beech-Jones also found the City of Sydney, which inspected and certified the building, was negligent.
A damages sum has not been reached but the judge foreshadowed a "large financial fund" flowing to Ms Lee.
