A British woman who was seriously injured when a coconut tree fell on her during a holiday in Sri Lanka has sued a law firm for £4.5 million, alleging that its handling of her compensation case caused the claim to fail.
The woman was on holiday in Sri Lanka in 2017 when the tree came down on her, Hiru News reported on Sunday morning.
She has since brought a fresh action against the firm, saying that its failure to conduct her case properly, and professional negligence on its part, caused her substantial financial loss. Through that action she is seeking £4.5 million in damages.
The firm has acknowledged that an oversight occurred on its part in the filing of legal documents, according to the report. It has not, however, agreed to pay the large sum she is claiming.
A legal dispute that began with an accident in Sri Lanka has therefore grown, several years later, into a multi-million-pound compensation case against a British law firm.
The currency, and the tree
Hiru’s Sinhala text specifies පවුම් මිලියන 4.5 — 4.5 million pounds sterling. The outlet’s own English-language headline gives the figure as “4.5 million” with no currency attached, which in a Sri Lankan context reads naturally as rupees. The two differ by a factor of roughly 400.
The Sinhala also says a coconut tree fell on her — පොල් ගසක් — not a falling coconut, which is the more common form of this kind of accident report.
What this desk could not verify
Hiru names the woman in a Sinhala transliteration that reads back as “Claire Sewell.” British press reports of the case appear to spell the surname “Saywell,” but this desk was unable to fetch any of them to confirm it: the UK outlets carrying the story returned a connection failure on one route and a refused connection on the other. The spelling is therefore recorded here as uncertain rather than resolved.
The same limitation applies to the detail of the case. British coverage appears to identify the law firm, the hotel and resort town where the accident happened, the nature of the filing error, the extent of her injuries, and expert evidence about why the tree came down. None of that could be independently retrieved, and none of it is reproduced here. Hiru’s filing, which is the only account this desk could fetch and date, contains none of those particulars.
Not reported
Hiru does not name the law firm, the court hearing the claim, or the holiday company against which the original compensation claim was brought. It does not say where in Sri Lanka the accident occurred, what injuries she suffered, what the original claim was worth, what deadline was missed, or when the matter is listed to be heard.
Single source. Hiru News was the only verified newsroom carrying this story at the time of writing. No Sri Lankan newsroom appears to have covered the 2017 accident itself.
