Commissioner of Main Roads v Jones

The Commissioner of Main Roads (the Commissioner) appealed to the High Court of Australia against a decision of the Supreme Court of Queensland which had awarded damages to Mr Jones for personal injuries sustained when his vehicle collided with a concrete median strip on a public road. The dispute concerned the extent of the Commissioner's liability for the accident, which Mr Jones alleged was caused by the negligent design and construction of the road.

The High Court was required to determine whether the Commissioner owed a duty of care to road users in relation to the design and construction of roads, and if so, whether that duty had been breached in the circumstances of this case. Specifically, the court considered whether the median strip constituted a dangerous or hazardous feature of the road, and whether the Commissioner had taken reasonable steps to mitigate any foreseeable risks associated with its presence.

The court held that the Commissioner, as the authority responsible for the construction and maintenance of public roads, owed a duty of care to road users to ensure that roads were designed and constructed with reasonable safety. However, the court found that the median strip, in this instance, was not inherently dangerous and that its design and construction were not negligent. The court reasoned that the Commissioner was entitled to construct roads with median strips for traffic management purposes, and that the presence of such a feature did not automatically render the road unsafe. The court applied the principles of negligence, focusing on the foreseeability of harm and the reasonableness of the defendant's conduct in the circumstances.

The appeal was allowed, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Queensland was set aside.