Woman’s court fight for damages for the serious injuries she sustained when she was abandoned after a heroin overdose continues

A 29-year-old is now a paraplegic after her friends left her in a parked car, including to go to a casino, for more than 48 hours.

A compensation fight surrounding the case of a father and daughter who abandoned an unconscious woman in the backseat of her car for more than 48 hours after a heroin overdose, leaving her a paraplegic, continues.

The Court of Appeal granted the woman leave to appeal an earlier court ruling dismissing her claim for damages on August 31 this year, enabling her to continue her battle in the courts.

The woman, who cannot be named, alleges she suffered heatstroke, cardiac arrest, clots, multiple organ failure, a brain injury and paraplegia as a result of being abandoned in her car in 2012.

On January 5 that year the woman, who was then aged 19, drove to Balaclava to pick up her friend, Jessica Montague, and then on to South Melbourne to meet Jessica’s father, Leonard Montague.

There she bought heroin off Mr Montague and was injected with the drug while sitting in the driver’s seat between 4pm and 5pm, court documents reveal.

Within minutes she fell unconscious and the Montagues moved her into the backseat, before Mr Montague moved into the driver’s seat and drove her car to Southbank.

The pair parked and left the still unconscious woman in the car while they spent hours inside Crown Casino, leaving her a note explaining that the car was locked and they had taken the keys.

The woman was still unconscious when the Montagues returned.

Mr Montague drove the car to Brighton and parked it near his home just before sunrise on January 6 — leaving the woman, who remained unconscious, in the car.

It was not until around 11pm on January 7 that the woman’s parents found her in the car.

She was then rushed to hospital in a critical condition.

During the more than two days she had been unconscious, the air temperature outside had reached a high of 30C, meaning the temperature inside the car had also risen.

Paramedics recorded her body temperature as 40.5C when she was found.

The court documents state there was “no evidence” Mr Montague checked on the woman after he last parked the car.

The Montagues were each convicted and sentenced by a judge in January 2016 after each being found guilty of one charge of reckless conduct endangering life.

In December 2019 the woman began her claim for damages for the injuries she alleges she sustained as a result of Leonard Montague’s negligence at abandoning her as a passenger in the car and leaving her exposed to heatstroke by parking where he did in Brighton.

A trial examined whether her injuries arose as a result of the use of the car and whether the Transport Accident Commission was liable “to indemnify the driver in respect of the injured person’s claim for damages”.

The TAC denied the woman’s alleged injuries arose from the use of the car and denied it was liable to indemnify Montague, who is now deceased.

A judge dismissed the proceedings in June 2021, stating it had not been established that the TAC was liable.

“She remained in the vehicle because she was abandoned, unconscious and immobile…” he had said.

The TAC had agreed, noting she had been “inside the vehicle which had been used as the receptacle in which she was injected with heroin” and that was not incidental with the normal use of a motor vehicle.

It also submitted the woman’s injuries were, “at most, a casual concomitant of having been transported in the vehicle” and the relationship between where Mr Montague parked in Brighton and the woman’s injuries were “merely coincidental”.

The woman, who is now aged 29, appealed the decision on three grounds and was successful.

Court of Appeal judges last month granted her leave to appeal and set aside the trial judge’s orders.