It should have been a routine trip to the hair salon, but instead Samantha Chesney ended up so badly burned she needed plastic surgery.
Now, the Staten Island teenager has won damages totaling $235,000 to settle a civil lawsuit, according to her lawyer.
Samantha was 14 in 2004 when she walked into the Allure beauty salon, then on Amboy Road in Staten Island, to have highlights put in her hair.
But the chemicals were so strong they left her with third-degree burns and a lesion the size of a dollar coin on the back of her head.
After four cosmetic surgeries and more than two years of legal wrangling, Samantha has a settlement, first reported on the Web site VerdictSearch.
“It is definitely a fair outcome,” said her lawyer Pete Reid. “She is a lovely girl, and what they did was irresponsible. This settlement is not going to completely fix her life, but it will help.”
Samantha visited the beauty salon in August 2004 where the stylist put tinfoil containing peroxide and other chemicals on her hair to lighten it.
She complained the treatment felt hot, but staffers said they did not see any damage to her hair, according to court records obtained from VerdictSearch.
Samantha’s father, John, sued, saying Allure’s employees acted negligently.
An employee at Allure declined to comment.
