Eight receive damages over M3 roundabout crash

Ray Managh

Eight people were injured when one car rear-ended another at the Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, roundabout over the M3 seven years ago and all of them got damages in the Circuit Civil Court on Monday in eight personal injuries claims.

Barrister Shane English told Judge James McCourt there had been a total of nine people in the two cars, but insurers had been unable to find Alexandru Pozdirca, driver of a Nissan Micra that had crashed into a Vauxhall, stopped to give right of way to a car already on the roundabout.

Mirela Conica, then a 17-year-old leaving cert schoolgirl and now 24 and a Trinity College student, of Monastery Heath Court, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, had been seated directly behind Pozdirca in the Nissan Micra and suffered injuries to her knees and neck, the court heard.

Blameless

Judge McCourt, who told her barrister Niall O’Neill and John Greene of PC Moore Solicitors, that Ms Conica had been blameless and a credible witness, awarded her €20,539.

The court heard that restaurant manager Renat Ganiev, of Sandford Wood, Swords, Co Dublin, was returning from having taken four members of his family on a sightseeing tour when their Vauxhall car had been struck by Pozdirca’s Micra.

He and four members of his family, represented by barrister Pat Purcell and Neil Deery of Hennessy and Perrozzi Solicitors, all claimed damages for injuries arising from the collision. Judge McCourt awarded Ganiev €12,547 to include €7,500 general damages and the loss, less salvage value, of his car which had been written off.

The awards were against Flynn Bros Rent-a-Car, Athlone Road, Roscommon, which had leased Pozdirca the Nissan Micra and the missing Pozdirca himself, formerly of Foxborough Road, Lucan, Co Dublin.

Following the awards in the first two cases heard by the court a compromise process of negotiation went into overdrive and the remaining six cases were settled for undisclosed amounts.

Claims by Sergey Chernova, a 77 year-old retired engineer and his wife, Tatyana Chernova; Anna Chernova (44) a restaurant supervisor, of Sandford Wood, Swords; Serghei and Svetlana Conica and Favziya Ganieva.