Elements of Negligence and Hazards in Hospitality Industry

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Assessment Type ☒ Written ☐ Case Study ☐ Project ☐ Presentation ☐ Other
Assessment Name Assessment 4
Assessment Date Week 9
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Information for Students: You may have two (2) attempts for this assessment.
 If your first attempt is not successful, your teacher will discuss your results with you and
will arrange a second attempt.
 If your second attempt is not successful, you will be required to re-enrol in this unit.
Only one re-assessment attempt will be granted for each assessment item.
Time Allowed:
Materials Provided:
Assessment Range and Conditions: This is a take home assessment. You will need to use a
good Business law book to complete it or you may use relevant websites which explain the
law of negligence and how it is applied. You will also need to find a good policy document
whci you can use as a modell.
Assessment Task Instructions for Students
One of your staff members lifts a heavy box of drinks and injures her back. If she wishes to
sue you for negligence, explain which three elements she will need to prove.
(You may find it useful to read the case of Maria Madaffari v Rydges Hotel Ltd T/As Lakeside
International Hotel [1996] ACTSC 91 (30 August 1996). It can be found at www.austlii.edu.au
Using your own experience of working in clubs, restaurants or cafes make a list of potential
hazards which could lead to a possible negligence claim by a customer or employee.
Develop a policy for your café/restaurant to avoid such an event happening again.
Describe how you would keep your staff up to date about new and amended policies.
Assessment Criteria: To achieve a Satisfactory result, your assessor will be looking for your
ability to demonstrate the key skills/tasks/knowledge detailed in the Assessment Task to
industry standard.
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Q1) Identify the three elements needed to sue in negligence
The elements needed to sue in negligence are as follows (Cavico et al. 2018):
 Duty - The defendant owed a legal duty to the plaintiff under the circumstances.
When assessing a negligence claim, the first step is to look to see whether or not the
defendant owed the plaintiff a legal duty of care. In some circumstances, the
relationship between the plaintiff and defendant might create a legal duty for
instance, a doctor owes a patient a legal duty to provide him or her with competent
medical care. Or, the defendant may owe the plaintiff a legal duty to act with
reasonable care in a certain situation as is the case when one is expected to operate
a motor vehicle safely and with a certain level of due care.
 Breach - The defendant breached that legal duty by acting or failing to act in a
certain way. Next, the court will look to see whether the defendant breached this
duty by doing (or not doing something) that a "reasonably prudent person" would do
under similar circumstances. The term "reasonably prudent person" refers to a legal
standard that represents how the average person would responsibly act in a certain
situation (Booth 2014). Stated simply, the defendant likely will be found negligent if
the average person, knowing what the defendant knew at the time, would have
known that someone might have been injured as a result of his or her actions -- and
would have acted differently than the defendant did in that situation.
 Causation - It was the defendant's actions (or inaction) that actually caused the
plaintiff's injury. The third element requires that the plaintiff show that the
defendant's negligence actually caused his or her injury. Sure, someone might be
acting negligently, but the plaintiff can only recover if this negligence somehow
causes the injury. For example, it wouldn't be fair to sue someone who was
negligently texting and driving for a totally unrelated fender bender that happened
just across the street -- just because the driver was negligent.
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