Cyprus court told driver she should have run over cat

The Supreme Court has overruled a lower court decision that found a driver guilty of negligence that caused injuries to her three passengers when she drove into a ditch in an attempt to avoid a cat running across the road, news reports said Friday.

Elli Demosthenous and her three friends were injured four years ago when she swerved to avoid a stray cat that ran in front of her car on the four-lane Paphos-Limassol highway, the Cyprus Mail reported.

During the initial hearings, the court had heard that Demosthenous was talking on her mobile phone and speeding at the time of the crash, for which she was accused of reckless driving, the newspaper said.

The three-judge panel, including the president of the Supreme Court, Christos Artemides, dismissed the previous ruling saying that, “with regards to the well-established principles as to the duty of an individual when looking after the welfare of passengers, that same duty did not apply to the cat but should have been applied to the individuals inside her vehicle.”

The appeals court dismissed the initial charges saying that the instant reaction of the driver due to the appearance of the cat did not give her any margin of choice for the right action, the Alithia daily reported.

The driver accepted a fine of 450 Cyprus pounds (774 euros) for use of the mobile phone and reckless driving, while criminal charges brought against her and her insurance company by one of the passengers who was seriously injured, is still outstanding in another court.