Lesson for a million

Nizhny Novgorod City Hall will pay compensation to a student for a fallen block of ice

Last Friday, a decision of the Nizhny Novgorod District Court, unprecedented for our country, came into force. The city administration and organizations that rented premises in the ill-fated building are obliged to pay a total of 1 million 200 thousand rubles to student Dmitry Nekrasov, who had a block of ice fall on his head from the roof. The court assessed compensation for loss of ability to work and treatment costs for the young man at this amount.

The accident happened almost four years ago - in March 2003. Student of the Faculty of Economics, Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky Dmitry Nekrasov, during a break between lectures, left the alma mater building onto the street. The students were at the very entrance to the faculty building when a block of ice fell from the roof of a five-story building. As a result, Nekrasov received a severe traumatic brain injury, which resulted in a long coma. A few months later, Dmitry was officially recognized as a disabled person of the second group. A year later, a young guy on the street lost consciousness and hit the curb. As a result - resuscitation and new treatment. Doctors were able to prove that the second fall was the result of an ill-fated blow from an ice block.

By that time, the criminal case opened on the fact that student Nekrasov received grievous bodily harm due to the negligence of utility workers had already acquired a lot of details. As it turned out, the building is on the balance sheet of the municipality. However, the city authorities terminated the contract with the contractor who was responsible for cleaning the roof. Numerous tenants of the building were required to monitor the condition of the roof and surrounding areas. Thus, as many as eight organizations appeared as defendants in court, including the administration of Nizhny Novgorod itself.

And here is the court's decision: Dmitry Nekrasov was awarded a million rubles for moral damage and more than two hundred thousand rubles - compensation for loss of ability to work and treatment costs. This money will clearly be useful for Dmitry. Nekrasov’s classmates have already graduated from the university, but he has lost, according to doctors, 80% of his ability to work. “Now he is not able to fully study: Dima’s speech functions are impaired, he cannot take care of himself,” said Dmitry’s father. According to Nekrasov's lawyer Oleg Prokhorov, the positive decision in the case and the unprecedentedly high amount of compensation may also be due to the fact that the victim intended to sue to the end. “We did not hide that in the event of a negative decision by Russian justice, we would file a claim with the European Court of Human Rights,” Mr. Prokhorov explained.

Be that as it may, the state prosecution ultimately concluded that “the roof cleaning was carried out improperly.” Therefore, all organizations involved in the fall of the ice block, which made a disabled person out of a young guy, must pay. A cassation appeal sent to the highest court by one of the building's tenants left the district court's decision unchanged, and the other day it came into force.

“We didn’t even file an appeal and, naturally, we will comply with the court’s decision,” said the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Vadim Bulavinov, adding in his justification that “a month ago, a new director of the house management company of the Nizhny Novgorod region was appointed, where the tragedy occurred.”

However, utility workers do not seem to have learned their lesson. The other day, the prosecutor's office of the Nizhny Novgorod region completed an inspection of materials “in connection with the emergency situation in Nizhny Novgorod caused by the formation of icicles on the roofs of houses.” As noted in the materials of the prosecutor’s office, “inadequate performance of control functions by local government bodies creates a threat to the life and health of citizens.” In particular, on December 3, 2006, 43-year-old Bekmurat Kakharov, a native of Uzbekistan, died near house No. 13 on Lomonosov Street when a one and a half meter block of ice fell on him from the roof. Based on the fact of improper performance of work and provision of services by Kommunalnik-NN LLC when servicing house No. 13 on Lomonosov Street, which negligently resulted in the death of a person, the district prosecutor's office opened a criminal case.

Vyacheslav ANTONOV, Nizhny Novgorod