High Court of Australia Assignment PDF
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Added on 2021-06-18
High Court of Australia Assignment PDF
Added on 2021-06-18
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Strong v Woolworths Ltd [2012] Case introduction: The High Court of Australia give its verdict in this case, permitting anappeal in a cae involving slip and fall. While doing so, the High Court visited the law relatedwith causation. This decision also reveals the difficulties that are present in slip and fall cases.Potentially this decision has important results for public liability, insurance and personal injurylaw. The facts of the case: The facts of this case are that the appellant while looking at pot plantspresent on the sidewalk area outside the entrance to Big W at Centro Taree Shopping Center (theCenter) had suffered a fall after slipping. This area was managed by the first respondent,Woolworths Ltd. that was operating in the area as Big W. The appellant is a disabled person andat the relevant time, the appellant was walking with the help of crutches. The reason was that theright leg of the appellant was amputated from the knee. At nearly 12:30 PM, the complainantslipped and fell after the crutch of the appellant came in contact with oily chip present on theground. The daughter of the appellant and a friend Mrs. Hurst worked with the apparent at thetime. After the apparent had fallen on the floor, an oil mark was noticed on the floor with thecrutch had slipped. Later on, during the evidence it was stated as big as the hand by theappellant’s daughter. The daughter and Mrs. Hurst, had seen the chip. The owner of the center was the second respondent, CPT Manager Ltd. CPT had entered into anagreement with the cleaning service business. According to the agreement, the floors of the
center should have been free from rubbish and spillages. It was also mentioned in the contractthat the utmost time between cleaning inspection of the common areas of the center was 15minutes. Ms. Walker had been employed as a cleaner by the cleaning services business. Shestated in court that the sidewalk area has been examined and cleaned after 20 minutes regularly.Before the fall of the complainant, the sidewalk was last examined at 8 am in the morning.In this case, proceedings were initiated by the appellant in the District Court of NSW. Therespondents were Woolworths and CPT. The negligence of Woolworths was particularly pointedout by the appellant, including the failure of the company to put in place suitable cleaningsystem, which can notice spillages etc. in the sidewalk sales area. In this regard, the companyacknowledged that there was no apparent system put in place by the company on the day of theevent related with intermittent examination and cleaning of the sales region. In this regard, theprimary judge was of the opinion that being the occupiers of the sidewalk, Woolworths had aduty of care towards the persons coming to this area. The spirit of the reasoning adopted by theprimary judge was that if other people can see (the grease mark) other than the complainant afterthe incident, it raises a grave issue as to why the mark was not noticed by the employees ofWoolworths under these circumstances. Therefore the march should have been removed eitherby Woolworths or by alerting the cleaner to remove the mark as it was entirely open to thecompany to do so. If it would have been done, the appellant would not have received the injury.Under these circumstances, Woolworths was considered as being guilty of negligence. In thiscase, the judgment was delivered against Woolworths to the amount of $580,299. However, theclaim of the complainant against CPT was dismissed.
The issues raised by both plaintiff and defendant: Under these circumstances, an appeal wasmade by Woolworths in the NSW Court of Appeal. It was claimed by the company that theprimary judge had made an error regarding a point of law. The appellant would not succeed inestablishing that the negligence of the company was the causation of the injuries suffered by her.The Court of Appeal arrived at the conclusion that the primary judge had failed to discuss thebreach of duty or causation, and a factual finding regarding causation should have been made. Itwas held by the Court of Appeal that reasonable care if not require the company to make surethat a person should be continuously present on the spot, looking for slippery substances in thatarea. Instead, all that was required was regular inspection and cleaning (Australian SafewayStores Pty Limited v Zaluzna, 1987). This resulted in the possibility that even after regularinspection and cleaning, the chip could be present between the last examination and thecomplainant slipping on it. The court stated that it was probable that the chip could have beenpresent during the lunch time, which was just before the fall of the appellant. As a result, thebreach of duty of care by Woolworths (the failure to clean every 20 minutes), could not beconsidered as being probable that if the duty would have been carried out, harm would not besuffered by the appellant (Dulhunty v J B Young Ltd., 1976). Under the circumstances, it was stated by the Court of Appeal that no evidence was presented onthe basis of which it can be stated that it was more probable that the chip remained present on thefloor for long enough to be noticed and taken away by a realistic cleaning system. In this regard,the court made a reference to section 5D, Civil Liability Act, 2002 (NSW) and stated that itcould not be established by the appellant in the present case that on a balance of probabilities thenegligence of the company had caused the appellant to fall and suffered an injury (Brady v
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