Category Archives: Negligence

Damages, Duty of Care, Landmark cases, LAW FIRM, Law reform, Negligence, Professional negligence, Wills and Probate

Hawkins v Clayton [1988] HCA 15 | 8 April 1988

ON 8 APRIL 1988, the High Court of Australia delivered Hawkins v Clayton [1988] HCA 15; (1988) 164 CLR 539 (8 April 1988).

A firm of solicitors was held to be negligent by failing to take reasonable steps to locate an executor (a non-client) following the death of a testatrix (a client whose will they prepared and retained for safe keeping) for some six years after the testatrix’s death.  The solicitors were held to be liable to pay damages for the loss suffered by the executor (who was also a residuary beneficiary) in not being able to manage the estate during the period of delay.

The majority (Brennan, Deane and Gaudron JJ) held that the solicitors owed a tortious duty of care to the executor and that the action was not statute-barred.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1988/15.html

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Duty of Care, Insurance Law, LAW FIRM, Negligence, Personal Injury, Uncategorized

Miller v Miller [2011] HCA 9 | 7 April 2011

ON THIS DAY in 2011, the High Court of Australia delivered Miller v Miller [2011] HCA 9 (7 April 2011).

A joint illegal enterprise (eg joyride) negates a duty of care (driver to passenger) thereby creating a defence of illegality on the part of the driver/insurer: see Gala v Preston [1991] HCA 18. However, in Miller v Miller the High Court held that the plaintiff (injured passenger) was owed a duty of care because she withdrew from the enterprise by asking to be let out of the car and there were no reasonable steps available to her to prevent the continuation of the offence.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2011/9.html

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Damages, Injunctions, LAW FIRM, Negligence, Neighbourhood disputes, Nuisance

Miller v Jackson [1977] EWCA Civ 6 | 6 April 1977

ON THIS DAY in 1977, the England and Wales Court of Appeal delivered Miller v Jackson [1977] EWCA Civ 6 (06 April 1977).  A cricket club was sued in negligence and nuisance caused by cricket balls landing on a neighbour’s property.  Whilst ordering damages, the court refused to grant an injunction to cease the action or further action as the game of cricket itself was considered to be in the public interest.

Lord Denning began with the following:

“In summertime village cricket is the delight of everyone. Nearly every village has its own cricket field where the young men play and the old men watch. In the village of Lintz in County Durham they have their own ground, where they have played these last seventy years. They tend it well. The wicket area is well rolled and mown. The outfield is kept short. It has a good club-house for the players and seats for the onlookers. The village team play there on Saturdays and Sundays. They belong to a league, competing with the neighbouring villages. On other evenings after work they practice while the light lasts. Yet now after these 70 years a Judge of the High Court has ordered that they must not play there anymore, lie has issued an injunction to stop them. He has done it at the instance of a newcomer who is no lover of cricket. This newcomer has built, or has had built for him, a house on the edge of the cricket ground which four years ago was a field where cattle grazed. The animals did not mind the cricket. But now this adjoining field has been turned into a housing estate. The newcomer bought one of the houses on the edge of the cricket ground. No doubt the open space was a selling point. Now he complains that, when a batsman hits a six, the ball has been known to land in his garden or on or near his house. His wife has got so upset about it that they always go out at weekends. They do not go into the garden when cricket is being played. They say that this is intolerable. So they asked the Judge to stop the cricket being played. And the Judge, I am sorry to say, feels that the cricket must be stopped: with the consequences, I suppose, that the Lintz cricket-club will disappear. The cricket ground will be turned to some other use. I expect for more houses or a factory. The young men will turn to other things instead of cricket. The whole village will be much the poorer. And all this because of a newcomer who has just bought a house there next to the cricket ground.”

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1977/6.html

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Civil procedure, Evidence, LAW FIRM, Negligence

Luxton v Vines [1952] HCA 19 | 4 April 1952

ON THIS DAY in 1952, the High Court of Australia delivered Luxton v Vines [1952] HCA 19; (1952) 85 CLR 352 (4 April 1952).

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1952/19.html

“In questions of this sort, where direct proof is not available, it is enough if the circumstances appearing in evidence give rise to a reasonable and definite inference: they must do more than give rise to conflicting inferences of equal degrees of probability so that the choice between them is mere matter of conjecture: see per Lord Robson, Richard Evans & Co. Ltd. v. Astley (1911) AC 674, at p 687. But if circumstances are proved in which it is reasonable to find a balance of probabilities in favour of the conclusion sought then, though the conclusion may fall short of certainty, it is not to be regarded as a mere conjecture or surmise: cf. per Lord Loreburn (1911) AC, at p 678″. (at p358)”

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LAW FIRM, Medical negligence, Negligence, Personal Injury, Professional negligence

Harvey & 1 Ors v PD [2004] NSWCA 97 | 30 March 2004

ON THIS DAY IN 2004, the NSW Court of Appeal delivered Harvey & 1 Ors v PD [2004] NSWCA 97. A doctor performing STD tests upon a couple has a duty before the tests are performed to obtain the couple’s consent to share the results.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWCA/2004/97.html

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Landmark cases, LAW FIRM, Negligence, Nuisance

Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd [1994] HCA 13 | 24 MARCH 1994

ON THIS DAY IN 1994, the High Court of Australia delivered Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd [1994] HCA 13; (1994) 179 CLR 520; (1994) Aust Torts Reports 81-264; (1994) 120 ALR 42; (1994) 68 ALJR 331 (24 March 1994). The rule in Rylands v Fletcher was abolished so that the determination of liability for harm caused by dangerous substances or activities on premises comes under the principles of negligence rather than strict liability.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1994/13.html

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LAW FIRM, Negligence

D’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid [2005] HCA 12 | 10 March 2005

ON THIS DAY in 2005, the High Court of Australia delivered D’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid [2005] HCA 12; (2005) 223 CLR 1; (2005) 214 ALR 92; (2005) 79 ALJR 755 (10 March 2005).

The High Court declined to overturn its earlier decision of Giannarelli v Wraith [1988] HCA 52; (1988) 165 CLR 543 (13 October 1988).

The High Court upheld the principle that an advocate is immune from being sued in relation to acts or omissions in the conduct of a case and to work “intimately connected” with work in court. Immunity therefore can extend to advice out of court by an advocate or their instructing solicitor which leads to a decision which affects the conduct of a case in court.

The court held that controversies should be finalised between the parties and not re-opened except in a small number of exceptional circumstances.

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Duty of Care, LAW FIRM, Negligence, Occupiers Liability, Personal Injury, Torts

Australian Safeway Stores Pty Ltd v Zaluzna [1987] HCA 7 | 10 March 1987

NEGLIGENCE. OCCUPIER’S LIABILITY. INJURY. ON THIS DAY IN 1987, the High Court of Australia delivered Australian Safeway Stores Pty Ltd v Zaluzna [1987] HCA 7; (1987) 162 CLR 479 (10 March 1987).

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1987/7.html

An occupier of premises owes a duty of care under the ordinary principles of negligence to take reasonable care for the safety of a person who enters the premises, irrespective of whether they are an invitee, trespasser or licensee.

Per Mason, Wilson, Deane and Dawson JJ at 488:

“We think it is wholly consistent with the trend of recent decisions of this Court touching the law of negligence, both in this area of an occupier’s liability towards entrants on his land and in the areas which were the subject of consideration in San Sebastian Pty. Ltd. v. Minister Administering the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 [1986] HCA 68; (1986) 68 ALR 161 and Cook v. Cook [1986] HCA 73; (1986) 61 ALJR 25; 68 ALR 353, to simplify the operation of the law to accord with the statement of Deane J. in Hackshaw, at pp.662-663:

‘… it is not necessary, in an action in
negligence against an occupier, to go through the
procedure of considering whether either one or
other or both of a special duty qua occupier and an
ordinary duty of care was owed. All that is
necessary is to determine whether, in all the
relevant circumstances including the fact of the
defendant’s occupation of premises and the manner
of the plaintiff’s entry upon them, the defendant
owed a duty of care under the ordinary principles
of negligence to the plaintiff. A prerequisite of
any such duty is that there be the necessary degree
of proximity of relationship. The touchstone of
its existence is that there be reasonable
foreseeability of a real risk of injury to the
visitor or to the class of person of which the
visitor is a member. The measure of the discharge
of the duty is what a reasonable man would, in the
circumstances, do by way of response to the
foreseeable risk.'”

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Duty of Care, LAW FIRM, Negligence

Sydney Solicitors

ON 20 AUGUST 1984, the High Court of Australia delivered Jaensch v Coffey [1984] HCA 52; (1984) 155 CLR 549 (20 August 1984).

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1984/52.html

A plaintiff suffered nervous shock when immediately after an accident she saw her injured husband in hospital and was told of the seriousness of his injuries.

The High Court extended the class of persons to whom a duty of care is owed to those who, although not present at the scene of an accident, are at risk of suffering psychiatric injury by personally perceiving the direct and immediate aftermath of the accident in which a person with whom they are in a “close or intimate relationship” with is negligently injured or killed.

The duty of care was characterised as arising from the injury being reasonably foreseeable and sufficient proximity between the plaintiff and the defendant.

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Duty of Care, LAW FIRM, Negligence

Sydney Lawyers

ON 20 AUGUST 1984, the High Court of Australia delivered Jaensch v Coffey [1984] HCA 52; (1984) 155 CLR 549 (20 August 1984).

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1984/52.html

A plaintiff suffered nervous shock when immediately after an accident she saw her injured husband in hospital and was told of the seriousness of his injuries.

The High Court extended the class of persons to whom a duty of care is owed to those who, although not present at the scene of an accident, are at risk of suffering psychiatric injury by personally perceiving the direct and immediate aftermath of the accident in which a person with whom they are in a “close or intimate relationship” with is negligently injured or killed.

The duty of care was characterised as arising from the injury being reasonably foreseeable and sufficient proximity between the plaintiff and the defendant.

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