Eindhoven must pay lifeguard €4,600 in damages for accident caused by dead mouse
The municipality of Eindhoven must pay a lifeguard over 4,600 euros in compensation for an accident caused by a dead mouse, the Oost-Brabant subdistrict court ruled. The woman hurt her knee two years ago when she got such a fright from a colleague walking by with the dead critter that she fell out of her lifeguard chair.
The accident happened on 22 June 2022. The woman was on duty at an outdoor public pool when a visitor reported that there was a dead mouse in the paddling pool. The woman asked a colleague to remove the animal from the water, saying that she was terrified of mice. She returned to her 1.7-meter-high lifeguard chair and continued keeping an eye on the swimmers.
The woman said in court that, at one point, she felt water drops on her head. When she looked up, she saw the dead mouse in the net above her. Her colleague had walked past with the net over his shoulder. She didn’t notice him because she was watching the swimmers, as was her job.
When she saw the mouse, she got a massive fright and tried to quickly leave the chair. She took the first step but missed the middle one and fell, landing badly on her knee. The injury she sustained left her unable to work for a long time. She still suffers from the consequences of the accident, she said.
Because the municipality owns the swimming pool, the woman held it liable for the damages she suffered.
The municipality argued that it could not be held liable for the damages because it could not have foreseen this series of unfortunate events—that the lifeguard might have to jump out of the high chair in a hurry due to her fear of mice and the presence of such a critter and thereby miss a step. According to the municipality, an employer only needs to do what can reasonably be expected of it.
The court ruled in the lifeguard’s favor. According to the court, the municipality had failed in its duty of care as an employer. The lifeguard chair, which had no backrest and three narrow steps, was more like a high bar chair and was not safe enough. It is plausible that a lifeguard may need to leave the chair in a hurry, for example, to help a struggling swimmer. The municipality should at least have trained its employees to do so safely, which it didn’t.
The need to remove vermin like mice is something that happens sporadically, but does occur in public pools, the court said. “In short, the municipality of Eindhoven can and may indeed be required to instruct its employees on how vermin can be removed and cleaned up from the pool water in a safe manner for everyone,” the court said. “It has been established that this has not happened.”
If it had, perhaps the mouse would have been immediately placed in an opaque container, which would “prevent third parties from being frightened or offended — which can happen when crossing the pool area with a scoop net containing a dead mouse slung over one’s shoulder.”
The court, therefore, ordered the municipality to pay the woman 4,647.70 euros for the damages she suffered in the accident. All of the money was for legal fees and court costs, as the plaintiff was strictly requesting a ruling on liability and not punitive damages. “The subdistrict judge … declares that the Municipality of Eindhoven is liable for all material and immaterial damages suffered and yet to be suffered by [plaintiff] as a result of the accident on 22 June 2022,” the court stated.
