A child who suffered injuries in the womb at 20 weeks gestation has been awarded damages for a personal injury claim arising from an accident in a Tesco store.

David K McGrath, lawyer for the now 4 year old child, told Judge Eoin Garavan in the Circuit Civil Court that his client was injured when her mother collided with her shopping trolley which stopped suddenly on a moving walkway. Mr McGrath said that when the child was born in May 2013 she was found to have been suffering with haemolytic disease of the newborn, a type of jaundice, and had to be treated in a special unit for just under a week.

He said a medical expert linked the child’s condition to the accident and that Tesco had offered Ms Stewart, of Claremont Road, Sandymount, a settlement of €45,000 in respect of what happened to the child. The judge approved the settlement.

The case comes only two weeks after a new abortion law in New York state made it impossible to prosecute someone for killing an unborn child in the course of an assault on its mother, even if the assailant deliberately targeted the womb of the mother. This was a result of entirely decriminalising abortion and moving it into the realm of public health care instead.