Photo from Sørenga. Oslo municipality is involved in two legal cases as a result of accidents in the bathing areas in the city centre, where it is argued that the signage about shallow water is not good enough. Photo: Javad Parsa / NTB
Of NTB | 05/09/2024 10:54:25
Crime and justice: – For the municipality of Oslo, it is important to clarify how far the municipality’s responsibility extends in cases like this, says communications director Arve Rosland at the Urban Environment Agency to NRK.
Doctor Henning Hoyer suffered a complicated ankle fracture when he jumped into the sea to try to save a lifeless person in 2018. Hoyer also suffered permanent injuries after the accident, and he died shortly before the appeal started, according to NRK.
In the district court, the municipality was acquitted, but the Borgarting Court of Appeal ruled earlier this year that the municipality is responsible for compensation for what happened. It was justified by the fact that the underwater embankment at the site was man-made and that the municipality therefore had a duty to ensure that the danger was better signposted.
– The municipality believes that the Court of Appeal has applied too strict a standard when the court came to the conclusion that the municipality is responsible for the damage Hoyer sustained when he jumped off the quay front in Bjørvika, says Rosland to the national broadcaster.
Later in May, another appeal case about signage at bathing areas in the center of Oslo will be heard at the Court of Appeal. It concerns the diving accident at the jetty at the Munch Museum in Bjørvika in 2021, where then MMA athlete Geir Kåre Nyland was paralyzed from the chest down after he plunged and hit a concrete element underwater. Oslo municipality was sentenced to pay Nyland compensation in the district court, but has appealed the case.
(© NTB)