Burns v Hoyts Pty Ltd

Burns (the plaintiff) sued Hoyts Pty Ltd (the defendant) in negligence after sustaining an injury when a cinema seat automatically retracted. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant owed a duty of care to cinema patrons to warn them of the risk of injury from the automatic retraction mechanism of the seats. The case was heard in the Court of Appeal of New South Wales.

The central legal issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff to warn of the risk of injury posed by the automatic retraction of the cinema seats. This involved considering whether the risk of injury was reasonably foreseeable and, if so, what the scope of the defendant's duty of care entailed in relation to that risk.

The Court of Appeal found that the risk of injury from the automatic retraction of the seats was reasonably foreseeable. The court reasoned that the defendant, as the operator of the cinema, had knowledge of the mechanism and its potential to cause harm. Therefore, the defendant owed a duty to warn patrons of this specific risk. The court concluded that the trial judge had erred in finding that no duty to warn existed.

Consequently, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, setting aside the original verdict and judgment. In its place, the court entered a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, with damages to be assessed. The matter was remitted to the District Court for a new trial limited to the assessment of damages, and the respondent was ordered to pay the appellant's costs of the appeal and the original hearing.