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A Surrey man who was attempting to remove his granddaughter from a parked vehicle when it was rammed by an impaired driver has been awarded $290,000 in damages for injuries he suffered during the incident.

Court heard that Jose Granja was trying to get the little girl out of her car seat when Csaba Jozsef deliberately rammed his car into the passenger side door of the parked vehicle and twice rammed the rear bumper.

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Jozsef, who has pleaded guilty to several criminal charges in connection with the June 2010 incident, got out of his vehicle and approached Patrycia Arana, the driver of the parked vehicle and the mother of the girl, while screaming obscenities and punched her in the face.

He tried to punch Granja but due to his highly intoxicated state could only hit Granja’s open hands and kick him in the legs. The incident happened in the parking lot of Granja’s Surrey condo.

At trial, Jozsef and ICBC, a third party to the lawsuit, admitted the collision was caused by his negligence but Jozsef insisted that because of his intoxication he wasn’t capable of injuring Granja, a refugee from Colombia.

The defendant, who testified that due to his intoxication he had no recollection of the events and could not explain his actions, argued that the cause of Granja’s physical and psychological injuries were as a result of pre-existing factors and not related to the accident.