Delhi hotel to pay Rs 4.9 cr to swimmer

33 years after Australian was disabled in pool mishap, hotel told to pay a hefty compensation

New Delhi: She was a swimming champion and a member of the Queensland water polo team. It was a family holiday in one of Delhi's five-star hotels, and Susan Leigh Beer was accompanying her father, a diver and former backstroke champion. Then, one hot day of May 1978, the 17-year-old decided to take a dip in the hotel swimming pool. And everything changed.
Susan slipped on the unclean bottom of the pool, hit her head against the pool wall, and was rendered disabled.
Nearly 33 years later, the Delhi High Court on Thursday ordered Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) -- which ran Akbar Hotel, where the incident happened -- to give Susan Rs. 1.82 crore for the loss of her life and limb, and "on account of physical pain, mental anguish and psychological anguish and loss of education".
ITDC will pay this with an interest of 6 per cent from 1982. The total works out to Rs. 4.96 crore.

Pulling up ITDC for its "insensitivity" for claiming that Susan was not physically incapacitated, Justice B D Ahmed held the hotel management absolutely responsible for the incident.
A quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair, Susan had filed the petition for compensation in 1982, seeking Rs. 2 crore for her injuries.
As per her petition filed through advocates Madan Bhatia and Anup Kumar Sinha, on May 5, 1978, she jumped into the pool from the shallow end and immediately lost her balance on the slippery tiles and the slime accumulated on them, falling backwards.
ITDC rejected the Beer family's charge that the pool was poorly maintained, accusing Susan instead of being reckless. The HC, however, concluded that there was enough medical evidence to establish Susan's handicap and ITDC's denial of this only showed its insensitivity.
Source: The Indian Express