A victory for housekeepers everywhere

A self-proclaimed clean freak who suffers chronic pain from a car crash made history Monday with a court victory in Ontario, Canada that upholds her $60,000 award for being unable to do housework.

Claudia McIntyre became the first person in the province to be awarded compensation for injuries affecting a person's ability to clean their house, according to a story from Canwest News Service.

It's a pretty big deal for women, who traditionally, do the bulk of the housework.

As McIntyre's attorney put it:

Although anyone could lose housekeeping capacity as a result of injuries, in our society traditionally women have fulfilled that role. Our courts have traditionally recognized that if somebody loses the ability to work, that's worthy of compensation. Now people who work in the home are entitled to the same consideration.

In the judgement, Justice Susan Lang said that losing the ability to do housework amounts to a loss of identity for the plaintiff.

You can read the whole story here.