Court awards man €17,500 for damages suffered in 2006 garage collapse

A man whose garage sustained extensive damage after the floors above it collapsed in 2006 was awarded €17,500 in damages by the Constitutional Court on Thursday.

Madam Justice Anna Felice ruled that Carmelo Saydon was blameless in the incident and that all blame, in fact, lay with the proprietors of the property above the garage, Jesmond and Marisa Pulo, and the architect and builder they contracted to carry out structural work in their property.

The Court concluded that October 2005, the couple had contracted a builder to carry out some work in their property in St Mary Street, Birkirkara.

Upon accepting the commission, the builder had signed a release accepting all responsibility for any damage caused to the Pulo’s property or the adjacent properties while the work was being carried out.

The work started in December 2005 and Saydon soon after complained to the Pulos that some of the stone slabs in his garage ceiling had been damaged because of the work being carried out in the floor above it.

In a signed private agreement, the Pulo couple accepted to repair the damage to the slabs at their expense.

At this time, the Pulos decided to make some structural changes in their property, including replacing an archway with a wall.

They appointed an architect to oversee the work and he, in turn, instructed the builder on how to remove the archway and how many trusses to use – and how – to sustain the weight of the ceiling the archway was supporting.

On 7 February 2006, while the builder was dismantling the archway, part of the ceiling it was supporting collapsed onto the floor, which in turn collapsed into Saydon’s garage.

The court found Jesmond and Marisa Pulo, the builder and the architect equally responsible for the damage caused, and ordered them to collectively pay Saydon the sum of €17,500 and all court expenses.