Landmark Case Leads to £2.5m Compensation

Injury lawyers have helped hundreds of holidaymakers who were staying at a Caribbean hotel win the biggest amount of compensation payouts following a landmark case.

Over 500 of the guests staying at the holiday resort at a Dominican Republic hotel received compensation totalling over £2.5 million after the guests were left suffering from severe food poisoning.

Thomas Cook and MyTravel were ordered to compensate the victims, including 12 couples who were on their honeymoon, who were staying at the four-star Bahia Principe resort after they had their holiday ruined due to the outbreak of illnesses such as Salmonella and Shigella in 2007.

Twenty-nine of the 514 victims were hospitalised while a majority of them required medical treatment.

During their flight home, one plane was quarantined at Gatwick airport to be boarded by doctors due to the number of complaints from passengers.

Furthermore, despite the incident having had occurred two years ago, over 200 of the holidaymakers are still suffering from long-term effects.

In August last year, the Dominican Republic Minister for Public Health, Bautista Rojas stated that a number of holidaymakers suffered from contaminated food.

According to a number of reports, the Bahia Principe Hotel has witnessed previous claims of holidaymakers suffering from illnesses.

Clive Garner, the head of the travel litigation team of a solicitor firm who represented the travellers said: "This was an astonishing outbreak at a hotel which should have offered its guests a dream holiday in the Caribbean.

"The scene at the time was horrendous. Day after day, fleets of ambulances were ferrying people to hospital and yet still tour operators carried on flying people out there.

"There was a flagrant disregard for their customers' health and safety and every single tour operator in the UK needs to look at what happened to make sure something like this can never happen again.

"It beggars belief to think that so many people can fall ill at one hotel without the issue being resolved and it's a shocking example of how not to treat your customers."

He added that the incident: "was a comedy of errors from start to finish but one which wasn't funny for anyone caught up in it."

The claim had been settled out of court and had totalled to over £2.5 million.

Commenting on the settlement, Mr Garner said: "This settlement will at least go some way to helping them put it behind them."

A spokesperson for Thomas Cook said: "We take all reports of illness very seriously and we were very concerned by the outbreak of sickness that took place at the Bahia Principe in 2007.

We are pleased that the majority of legal cases have now been settled and we want to be able to reassure all out customers that we work with our hotel partners to continually monitor the hygiene standards in their properties."

If you have been ill or injured while away on a holiday speak to an injury lawyer and find out of you can receive a compensation claim.