Roll the tapes, your honor!
A woman lost her $61,000 personal injury bid after claiming a child running amok in a grocery store caused her great bodily harm when the aforementioned child crashed into her. Well, CCTV footage of the incident was played during her trial and it showed that not only was she lying, she stuck out her foot and tripped the kid.
Independent.ie reports 40-year-old Jiao Zhang, of Dublin, filed a $61,000 suit against the Lidl’s Leixlip store in September 2017, claiming that a 9-year-old boy caused her fall. She added the fall caused her terrible pain because she was 16 weeks pregnant and fell in a way “to protect her bump.”
She further accused the store’s staff of watching the child running around the store and not doing anything about it.
Well, Zhang finally had her day in court and the CCTV footage taken during the incident proved she made the whole thing up.
The store’s attorney, Conor Kearney, also revealed Zhang withheld some information about the “running amok” kid during her cross-examination.
“That CCTV shows footage of your own child walking around the store on its own opening fridges and cabinets,” he said. “From the extra footage it seems to me you put out your leg and you tripped up the child who fell over your leg and the child goes tumbling.”
Kearney said that, from there, Zhang laid on the ground and re-enacted a Life Alert commercial until she was carted to the hospital.
Kearney told the judge that no other evidence was needed to prove his client was not responsible for the incident. The judge agreed; he dismissed Zhang’s suit and awarded costs against her.