The employer of a construction worker left partially paralysed and incontinent after falling from the 59th to the 58th floor of a tower has been ordered to pay him Dh600,000 in compensation.
The appeals court blamed the company for failing to provide safety measures that would have prevented the worker from slipping through an unsecured opening in the scaffolding.
The worker, 34, who is the sole provider for his family, broke several vertebrae after falling on his back.
An earlier ruling in the misdemeanours court ordered the company to pay Dh150,000 in compensation. The worker then took the case to the civil court, seeking Dh5 million in compensation for the physical and mental damages he sustained.
The civil court's first verdict, which also ordered the company to pay Dh150,000 in damages, was challenged by both parties, with the company arguing that the compensation should not exceed Dh24,000.
The appeals court ruled the company should pay the worker Dh600,000. It calculated this amount based on the equivalent of two diyyas (blood money payments) - Dh200,000 for bowel incontinence, the same amount for bladder incontinence, a partial diyya for the damage to his motor functions - and Dh60,000 in financial and moral damages.
