A taekwondo master sued a Canberra McDonald’s for more than $2 million in damages after slipping over inside the restaurant five years ago.
Mohammad Almazaydeh was instead awarded $14,740 after the ACT Supreme Court heard his claims of being left unable to sleep and major economic loss due to multiple injuries.
Justice David Mossop found there was little evidence of Mr Almazaydeh’s employment history as he ruled on the personal injury claim this week.
The slip unfolded on the morning of February 17, 2021, at the Mitchell McDonald’s on the national capital’s busy Northbourne Ave.
Mr Almazaydeh, the court heard, had attended the venue to meet another man as part of a waterproofing business plan and slipped on the way back from the toilet.
He claimed in court not to have seen a warning sign, nor did he notice the floor was wet when he walked to the toilet, and that the slip damaged his right shoulder and hip on both sides.
“The plaintiff’s evidence was that his injuries were getting more severe over time, that he would wake 30 times a night and needed to take medication in order to assist him to sleep,” the court heard.
He claimed in court to have missed out on $300,000 per year in income but Justice Mossop found there was “very limited” evidence of how he spent his time prior to the accident, aside from previously running a taekwondo business, some tiling work and caring for his wife.
CCTV footage played to the court showed a staff member mopping the floor about 9.50am, with four wet signs placed around the store.
The sign “relevant to the incident” that would unfold was moved slightly “seemingly to avoid it obstructing foot traffic”, before Mr Almazaydeh entered.
Justice Mossop wrote in his judgment Mr Almazaydeh had his head down as he walked toward the sign on two occasions, before his left foot began to slide out on the second time.
He grabbed onto the sign as he tried to regain balance, with each foot shown sliding toward the other as he scrambled to stay upright.
Mr Almazaydeh, then 56, ended face down, hunched over the wet floor sign, before he raised himself up and “limped toward the table, with his hand on his left hip area”.
He presented medical records showing he had seen multiple doctors and specialists in the years since for ongoing pain to his lower back, right shoulder and hips.
The court heard X-rays of his hips in the weeks after the incident showed normal alignments and no fractures, with some signs of mild degenerative disease.
He also told one specialist of having experienced lower back pain for 15 years, and records showed he had complained of a right shoulder injury from as early as 1994.
Mr Almazaydeh, now 61, represented himself at the hearing and initially claimed $1.8 million in economic loss alone based on the proposition he could have earned $300,000 per year from 2021 to 2026 via the planned waterproofing business.
He later lowered that claim to $1.5 million in his closing submissions.
There was also a claim of $650,000 in damages, with Justice Mossop saying it appeared about $200,000 of that was claimed to repay loans owed to a friend and family member.
The judgment stated Orthopaedic expert Dr Frank Machart from Bankstown Hospital assessed the plaintiff in 2024 and found the reporting of “substantial, disabling” injuries was not consistent with the CCTV.
He diagnosed Mr Almazaydeh with a soft tissue injury to the left buttock/lumbar spine, caused when the patient twisted during the slip.
Justice Mossop noted that a relative of Mr Almazaydeh reported Dr Machart as “being quite rude” to her father.
The judge found the doctor’s opinion appeared consistent with the CCTV and was “directed to the critical question of causation”, which he said other medical experts whose opinions Mr Almazaydeh relied on in court were not asked to address.
“For the reasons that I have given, I do not accept that the expert evidence tendered by the plaintiff establishes a causal link between the slip shown on the video and all of the consequences alleged to have flowed from it,” he wrote.
“Rather, I accept the opinion of Dr Machart that, at most, he suffered a soft tissue injury which may have been symptomatic for a number of weeks.”
Dr Machart recommended an award of $20,000 for general damages, which the judge described as “on the generous side to the plaintiff”.
Justice Mossop did find the restaurant breached its duty of care by not taking all reasonable steps to ensure anyone “on the premises did not suffer injury or damage as a result of … its cleaning operations”.
“In particular, the placement of the relevant warning sign was not such as to make clear that a person passing beyond it, into the area outside the service counter, would be travelling into an area where the floor was wet,” he wrote in a judgment published on Tuesday.
“Even though the warning sign had initially been centrally placed, its position at the time that the plaintiff slipped was off to the side, at the entrance to a different passage for foot traffic.”