A professional tarot card reader is suing Vue Cinemas for £12.7million claiming he was left in chronic pain after he was 'catapulted' from a 'defective' seat.
Fortune teller and actor Marcus Hunefalk-Franzen said the freak accident at the cinema in Islington, London, left him with chronic neck and back pain and even dulled his senses.
The 60-year-old also claimed his earnings as a tarot reader have tanked and he has lost several acting gigs since he was launched from the seat in September 2015.
Following the accident, Mr Hunefalk-Franzen sued Vue Entertainment Ltd and the company admitted liability with the claim being estimated at £50,000 which was later raised to £200,000.
After 11 years the case has still not gone to trial and court documents have revealed the value of the claim has risen to a staggering £12.7million.
However, Vue's lawyers have heavily disputed the 6,350 per cent increase to the valuation.
Mr Hunefalk-Franzen claimed his business ventures, involving a new form of acting coaching and an online psychic platform called MyPsychicEye, would have made him £1.5million.
He insisted that he would have made more than £1million per year had it not been for the accident and claimed he could have sold the business for £3million upon retirement.
Professional tarot reader Marcus Hunefalk-Franzen outside Central London County Court
Mr Hunefalk-Franzen clattered to the ground after his seat suddenly collapsed at the end of a matinee show in 2015, Central London County Court heard.
At the time of the accident, Mr Hunefalk-Franzen from Camden, north London, was doing tarot readings at Greenwich market and beginning to grow an online presence.
He had also landed a lead role in Ginger Beer, a film about a gay teacher at an agricultural school who learns ballroom dancing.
Court documents filed on his behalf recall the moment Mr Hunefalk-Franzen was injured in the cinema.
'As he alighted from the chair, the chair collapsed in on itself and catapulted the claimant forward into the chair in front, causing a forward flexion and deceleration movement, resulting in soft tissue damage.
'The claimant fell to the floor. By reason thereof, he has suffered personal injury, loss and damage.'
The documents noted that it was later discovered that bolts used to secure the chair to the floor were missing.
Mr Hunefalk-Franzen claimed that the chair was 'dangerously defective' and became a 'trap' for him.
Pictured: A screen and seating inside one of the cinemas at Vue in Islington, London
He alleged that cinema staff were at fault for 'failing to ensure' the chair was secure and leaving the 'wholly defective' seat in place.
At a pre-trial hearing in 2024 before Judge Yvette Genn, Vue's lawyer David White disputed the value of the lawsuit.
While Mr Hunefalk-Franzen - at that time - valued the claim at £200,000, Mr White argued it was worth between £8,000 to £12,500.
In its defence, Vue's lawyers said a review of the claimant's medical records before the accident showed a 'significant pre-existing history of symptoms' of chronic fatigue and neck pain dating back as early as 2008.
'On the day of the accident, the claimant reported to the defendant that he had suffered an injury to his back,' they said.
'There was no mention of immediate severe pain in the neck, in the feet and/or in the legs, nor of immediate moderate paraesthesia in the feet, nor of immediate mild loss of taste of the left side of the tongue.'
Judge Genn described the case as a 'complex claim' further complicated by a brain injury Mr Hunefalk-Franzen suffered in 2004 but said he had recovered from by 2013.
The claim was meant to go to trial by February 2025 at the latest, the court heard.
More than a year later, the case returned for another pre-trial hearing before Judge Alan Saggarson, where it was heard the claim will not be in court until the end of 2027.
Addressing the delay, the judge said Mr Hunefalk-Franzen who is representing himself, 'suffers from a constellation of difficulties relating to his cognitive ability and concentration and his ability to digest large amounts of information'.
Mr Saggarson also refused the tarot reader permission to rely on a revised report from a pain therapist on the grounds he had missed the deadline for submitting it.
'Litigants in person are not to be given any special treatment,' he said. 'If that were the case, the court would be dispensing, in what is a popular phrase at the moment, two-tier justice.'
As well as the claim for lost earnings, Mr Hunefalk-Franzen is claiming more than £12,000 for past holidays and thousands of pounds for a 15-year supply of orthopaedic shoes.
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