Bohemian’s Football Club and the Airtricity League have agreed to pay damages of €44,000 to an 11-year-old boy who was injured eight years ago while playing at a Communion function at the Dublin club’s Dalymount Park football grounds.
Barrister Ivan Daly told Judge John O’Connor in the Circuit Civil Court that three-year-old Jessie O’Brien had been playing with other children near the dugout when he fell and injured his mouth and front teeth.
Mr Daly, who appeared with Killeen Solicitors, Mountjoy Square, Dublin, said that while a full defence had initially been entered in the case taken by Jessie through his father Aidan O’Brien, liability had afterwards been conceded and a settlement offer of €44,000 had been made to the boy.
Counsel told the court that as a result of the fall Jessie, of Patrick Heeney Crescent, Gloster Place, Dublin, had suffered direct impact trauma to his mouth and nose and had been taken to the paediatric emergency department of the Adelaide and Meath Hospital for treatment.
Medical treatment
The accident happened May 11th, 2013 and Mr Daly said the boy's solicitor had rightly decided not to rush the case to court pending further and detailed medical oversight of the boy’s treatment and dental development.
Examination had revealed a 1cm wound to his upper lip which was bleeding and swollen and that his left central incisor baby tooth had been lost while another tooth was loose and partially impacted.
Mr Daly said Jessie had been referred to the care of Professor Leo Stassen, consultant oral and maxillofacial surgery, who diagnosed hypoplasia of the child’s permanent central and lateral incisors. A treatment had later been proposed by Dr Abigail Moore, paediatric dentist, for when the child’s teeth had fully erupted and matured.
He told the court the treatment plan envisaged a non-vital bleaching and micro-abrasion in the short term with the possibility of enamel veneers and possibly crowns at a later stage if necessary..
Judge O’Connor said he considered the boy’s legal team to have done very well for the child and approved the settlement offer of €44,000.
