Workplace prank costs man €30,000

A prank gone wrong has cost an employee at a local pharmaceutical plant nearly €30,000 in damages after a colleague's hearing was permanently damaged by it.

Conrad Montelbello filed a claim for damages in the First Hall of the Civil Court after he suffered permanent hearing loss at the Actavis factory in Bulebel in 2010 when a co-worker inflated a latex glove and then popped it close to his ear.

Montebello, a technician at the factory, had told judge Silvio Meli how co-worker Neil Cilia had played the practical joke on him while he had been at work on 2 September that year. Montebello, who suffered hearing loss and now hears a constant high pitched whistle as a result, held his employer and Cilia responsible for the permanent disability that he had suffered.

The defendants denied responsibility for the injury.

Montebello had testified how he had been asked to service a particular machine that day and, as he was returning to his station, had been called over by Cilia. But as he bent over to place his toolbox on the ground he heard a loud bang, which he likened to a hammer striking metal or a firework. He turned to find Cilia laughing and holding a torn latex glove.

On his part, Cilia insisted that it had been an accident. He had taken the latex glove off and was twirling it around when one of the glove fingers popped, he said in a statement. The resulting sound was “very small” and had only lasted “a second,” his witness statement read.

The court also heard a third employee, who had been standing around 15 metre away, testify to hearing a bang, followed by Montebello's cries of pain and seeing Cilia laughing. A medical expert appointed by the court had established that Montebello had suffered a 4% disability.

Judge Meli concluded that Actavis bore no responsibility for the injury as the use of the glove had not been according to the Standard Operating Procedures it had laid down. The same, however, could not be said for Cilia, who was held responsible for the injury and ordered to pay the plaintiff €29,885, also ordering him to suffer the costs of the case, with interest.