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A WOMAN’S €60,000 damages claim for personal injuries was dismissed in the Circuit Civil Court today after a judge found her case was undermined by photos she had posted online.
Rita Milinovic, a 29-year-old Lithuanian who has been living in Ireland for almost 10 years, told the court how her life had been dramatically changed by what was described as a minor collision in a car park.
But her case collapsed when barrister Shane English brought her through a collection of pictures which she had posted of herself on Facebook since the accident.
She was unaware that Mr English and Newmans Allianz Solicitors – the legal team acting for defending van driver Paul Ferris and O’Dwyer Property Management Limited – had downloaded them from her Facebook page.
They included a picture of her after having climbed to the top of Bray Head, as well as bikini-clad shots of her posing at international body sculpture competitions and others exercising in a gym.
Milinovic of Belfry Hall, Citywest, Dublin, told the court she had been driving her boyfriend’s car on 5 April last year, looking for a space in a car park, when Ferris, a driver for O’Dwyer Property Management had reversed into her.
She claimed she had suffered severe personal injuries and had to give up her waitressing work for six months before having to abandon her work altogether because she had been in such pain that she could not even carry plates.
Milinovic told English in cross-examination she had never been a member of a gym before the barrister produced pictures and evidence of her current membership of and exercising in a gym in Dublin and another in Lithuania. She said she swam at the Dublin gym to help her back.
English then presented her with pictures of herself dressed in a bikini at competitions in Lithuania, Latvia and Denmark. She said she had posed in photoshoots for a magazine.
“You have been wincing in agony in the witness box while giving your evidence and denied on oath you were ever a member of a gym,” English said.
You have told us nothing about your sports hobbies until your own Facebook pictures were presented to the court.
“Your case from beginning to end is a lie,” he said.
You are prepared to sue the defendants for damages and six months’ salary because you were incapable of working.
‘Far from impressed’
The president of the Circuit Court, Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, called the case “worrying”.
He said Milinovic had presented a case of very serious injuries to her neck, shoulders and back and was unable to work “in any shape or form”, yet she had been photographed after walking to the top of Bray Head shortly after the accident.
“Having read the medical reports and listening to the plaintiff’s evidence, the court is far from impressed by the veracity of her account of her injuries,” Groarke said.
She had been, at the very least, evasive in respect of her membership of a gym and extremely evasive as regards what form of exercise she had engaged in, he said.
It is not the type of veracity a judge expects. Walking to the top of Bray Head six weeks after the accident is, with respect, not what somebody who is quite as disabled as Ms Milinovic seems to have been would be doing.
Groarke said this raised questions about how deceitful Milinovic had been with the court.
“Trying to be as politically correct as one can be in this situation, it does not look like a person with such a fine physical physique as Ms Milinovic has could have been suffering a great deal of pain,” he said.
It is perfectly obvious this is a very fit person who is not in any way physically limited in her life.
He accepted some of the pictures may have been of photoshoots, but others showed her doing physical exercises – exercises somebody with a bad back would certainly not be engaging in.
Her pictured activities did not correspond with the description she had given of herself since the accident.
“The person we see in these photographs is a very fine human specimen who is clearly in the best of physical condition and who has been working to get into that physical condition,” Groarke said.
While she may have suffered some degree of injury in the accident, it could not have been particularly serious and the law demanded of people coming to court that they must do so in total honesty, he said.
Groarke said all litigants must be honest with the court and failure to do so attracted the penalty of dismissal.
Milinovic’s case was dismissed and she was ordered to pay legal costs.
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Sorry seems to be the hardest word goes the song,not in this kip though.
I find it hard to believe that there are still people in Galway Council that were active in the 70s-late 90s. Anybody in an institution that was involved with the deaths and unlawful dumping of babies can apologise away. If they were not involved with this institution then the apologies are empty. Where are those guilty of these atrocities? Those that were there and turned a blind eye? Hiding away, letting others apologise…
@Oliver Walker: I recently discovered that Politicians that are around since 1981 in Galway are still active today and include Mayors and Former TDS .
@Aine Healy: What do you mean ‘do your research’?… Have you seen the report? Have you read the article? Babies remains were dumped in septic tanks…
Big leap from that to abortion.
@Oliver Walker: please see my above reply in answer to your questions.
So, did you vote yes to legalising abortion that is responsible for the deaths of 7000 “invisible and voiceless” pre born human beings it it’s first year alone? Yes?
@Aine Healy: hold up, if they weren’t ‘dumped’ in there how do you think they got there? Crawled in themselves and died?
@Helen Downey: you should also do your research Helen. No babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank” by “the nuns” or anyone else. Notwithstanding the official report ( which I suggest that you actually read), where in the article above, does it state that babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank”?
It would appear that you are letting your ideological narrative get on the way of facts.
How about you Helen? Did your vote yes to the legalization of abortion which is responsible for the deaths of over 7000 Irish babies in its first year alone, most of whom actually did end up in the sewage system unlike the “Tuam babies” who did not?
@Aine Healy: I consider babies in a sewage system dumped. How else did they get there? You haven’t answered that I see.
@Helen Downey: you really should do your own homework rather than expecting others to do it for you. Why so lazy?
Again, your “consideration” does not facts make, although I acknowledge your considered opinion that aborted babies (those who are not incinerated) who end up in the sewage system as being “dumped”.
There is no written or oral documentation that evidences that babies or children who died in Tuam were “dumped” in a “septic tank” by “the nuns” or indeed that they were “killed” by “the nuns”.
Overwhelming evidence, with detailed references, shows that coffins and shrouds were used for babies who died in the Tuam mother and baby home. The babies were placed in a crypt. Crypts are very common in Ireland. Catherine Corless herself, interviewed two carpenters families who spoke to her about how their relatives built coffins for the babies. Nor were there any pipes going to or out the structure making the claim that the remains were in a septic tank utterly ridiculous. Old maps show a cess poll ( which is different to a septic tank) within the area and Corless put two and two together, made five, of which pro abortion advocates and Catholic bigots were only to delighted to fly the flag for.
All of the babies and children’s names, ages, places of birth and causes of death (tb, measles, flu, whooping cough amongst other illnesses) were recorded.
It was in fact county council who reduced the size of the original graveyard in order to build an access road to houses that had been built on the site and also to provide a playground. They reinterred the remains of babies and children that they had dug up in the structure (known as an ossuary). “The nuns” were well gone according to the evidence that shows the structure and re interment to have occurred after 1960’s.
Again, research on your part would have led you to the facts, but again it appears that you have little interest in the truth of the matter. How tragic is that?
@Aine Healy: the remains were found in a septic tank. Disused or not it is a septic tank. Not a grave.
Ah well, that’s ok then. No worries!
@Joecantdance: considering that the majority of the members of the council weren’t even born during the majority of the time this abuse was going on, what do you really expect them to do?
Not good enough, want to hear from the county manager at the time and to hear what his reasoning behind his lack of knowledge empathy of the women , not from the present council offering a hollow apology
They will be even more sorry when sued
No good. Not accepted. No point in this. Most of not all of this on the county council has nothing to do with it.
Are their politicians and senior civil servants getting a state funded pension for the work they did years ago. Health Boards, social workers among others.
have your say