FORTUNE FOR BACK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 863, 6 January 1930, Page 14

FORTUNE FOR BACK

ACTRESS SCALDED BY SHOWER-BATH AWARDED £33,500 DAMAGES The comfortable sum of £33,500 is the award granted to Miss Juanita Hansen, formerly a prominent film actress, in one of the most unusual suits for damages ever heard in an American court. Miss Hansen told a Supreme Court jury at White Plain, New York, that she took a bath at the Hotel Lincoln during the neat-wave in June, 1928, and turned the shower-handle marked “Cold.” Instead of enjoying the cooling sensation she expected, she said, scalding water poured out, and for many days she suffered so terribly from its effect that she was at the point of death. Her back was disfigured, she could not raise her arms, and she spent thousands of dollars on medical treatment. The accident, she asserted, left her unable to earn her living. Miss Hansen’s evidence was supported by doctors. The hotel proprietors, on the other hand, sought to prove that she was a drug addict. Miss Hansen admitted that at one time she took drugs, but she declared that early in the year she had written articles for a New York newspaper telling of her victorious fight against their pernicious influence. Dr. Nathaniel Boardman stated that when Miss Hansen, who was one of the early stars in the film world, realised how badly her face was scarred, she refused to have a mirror in her room, nor would she permit the furniture to be so highly polished as to reflect her features. Miss Hansen claimed £50,000 damages. Miss Hansen’s best-known pictures include “The Lost City,” “The Phantom Foe,” and “Yellow Arm.”