AN aspiring fashion designer has been awarded more than $251,000 in damages after a car hit her when she was attempting to cross a Sydney highway.
Helen Kamateros had been at the St George Leagues Club with two friends on November 11, 2005 to celebrate finishing her high school certificate exams.
Ms Kamateros, then 18, and her friends left the club to catch a bus from the opposite side of the Princes Highway at Kogarah.
However, a car struck Ms Kamateros as she crossed the road.
She launched a claim for damages in the NSW District Court in 2008 submitting the driver breached a duty of care.
In a decision handed down on Friday, the district court found in Ms Kamateros' favour and rejected driver Belinda Monk's claim there was nothing she could do.
According to the judgment, Ms Kamateros was behind a friend in crossing the road and was in the third lane, closest to the median strip, when the car struck her.
She told the court her friend suggested they cross the road as a bus would arrive soon, but denied she was hurried.
The trio had crossed the highway 60 metres south of a intersection with traffic lights.
Ms Monk told police on the night of the crash, she had been driving through a green light and saw three girls running across the road in front of her.
"There was one girl in each lane and there was nothing I could do," Ms Monk said in a statement to police.
"I applied my brakes but couldn't turn away or try and avoid them otherwise I would have hit all of them."
However, Judge Phillip Mahony SC did not accept the Ms Monk's submission.
"I therefore find that the defendant was driving at a speed which was excessive in the circumstances and in a manner that she was unable to avoid the plaintiff," he wrote in his decision.
"She therefore breached her duty of care to the plaintiff."
The judgment stated Ms Kamateros finished a TAFE course in 2009 in fashion design and had been working at the Johanna Johnston bridal boutique in Paddington.
She told the court she enjoyed working for the boutique but had to leave the job in 2010 because of back pain and headaches.
Ms Kamateros has had extensive physiotherapy for ongoing problems with her jaw, knee and lower back, the judgment stated.
The damages to be awarded were based on the assumption that but for her injury, Ms Kamateros would have had the opportunity to operate her own fashion business if she chose to.
After a reduction of 40 per cent due to contributory negligence, Ms Kamateros will be awarded $251,785.
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