Fuller-Lyons v New South Wales

The High Court of Australia heard an appeal from the New South Wales Court of Appeal concerning a personal injury claim. The appellant, Corey Fuller-Lyons, suffered severe injuries when he fell from a train operated by the respondent, New South Wales. The primary judge had found that Corey fell from the train as a consequence of the respondent's negligence.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether the Court of Appeal erred in rejecting the primary judge's finding of negligence. Specifically, the High Court considered whether the Court of Appeal was justified in overturning the primary judge's conclusion by relying on alternative hypotheses about Corey's fall that did not involve negligence by the respondent, or by asserting that the appellant had failed to exclude other possible explanations for the known facts, including hypotheses not explored in the evidence.

The High Court allowed the appeal, finding that the Court of Appeal had erred in its approach to inferential fact-finding. The Court held that the primary judge's finding of negligence was open on the evidence presented. The Court of Appeal had impermissibly substituted its own view for that of the primary judge by focusing on alternative hypotheses that were not necessarily supported by evidence or by requiring the appellant to exclude every conceivable, but unevidenced, possibility. The High Court emphasised that a plaintiff is not required to exclude every other possible explanation for an event, but rather to establish that the defendant's negligence was a probable cause of the injury.

Consequently, the High Court ordered that the appeal be allowed with costs, that the orders of the Court of Appeal be set aside, and that the appeal to the Court of Appeal be dismissed. The matter was remitted to the Court of Appeal to determine the costs of that appeal.