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Tattoo artist has to pay for misspelled word

A Halifax woman was awarded  $9,000 in damages after a Nova Scotia court ruled that a tattoo parlour, which misspelled a word onto the woman’s ribcage, was negligent.

Marie Huckle went into Newcombe Ink in December 2010 for a tattoo in memory of a friend who had recently died. She asked for the words, “See You at the Crossroads” to be scrawled onto her ribcage.

The tattoo artist, however, was speaking to another patron at the time, and accidentally wrote “See You at the Cossroads” with the needle.

The owner of the tattoo shop, co-defendant Adam Spencer, offered to pay for the tattoo’s removal, an expensive and often painful process. After eight sessions did not remove the tattoo, the technician assessed that Huckle needed 15 more sessions—at that time Spencer stopped returning her calls. Huckle sued the parlour in small claims court for the remaining costs. The adjudicator deemed the tattoo artist at fault, and Huckle was awarded $9,000 for 15 more sessions, treatment of the damaged skin and legal fees.

This is not the first time a tattoo artist has made a semi-permanent mistake while inking human skin. In 2011, Boston Bruin Brad Marchand commemorated his team’s 2011 Stanley Cup win with a tattoo that said “Stanley Cup Champians” and wrote about the spelling mistake in his ESPN blog. Instead of opting for removal, Marchand had the misspelled word corrected.

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