Hughes v Janrule Pty Ltd - [2010] ACTSC 5

PAUL JOHN HUGHES v JANRULE PTY LTD T/A GREGORY’S FORD
[2010] ACTSC 5 (5 February 2010)

NEGLIGENCE – personal injury – claim against employer – safety of place and system of work – plaintiff losing footing and falling on metal staircase – whether surface of step slippery – whether maintenance adequate – whether breach of duty of care

DAMAGES – personal injury – fall on metal staircase – injury to back – psychological sequelae – impairment of earning capacity – no issue of principle

PRACTICE and PROCEDURE – application by plaintiff to reopen case and call further evidence after judgment reserved – evidence as to what took place on view attended by judge during course of hearing – such evidence should not be permitted to be called – would not affect outcome in any event – application refused

Evidence Act 1995 ss 53, 54

Makita (Australia) Pty Ltd v Sprowles (2001) 52 NSWLR 705
Goldsborough v O’Neill (1996) 131 FLR 104
Wilkinson v Law Courts Ltd (2001) NSWCA 196
Murray v Figge (1974) 4 ALR 612
Smith v NSW Bar Association [1992] 176 CLR 256
Hines Exports Pty Ltd v Mediterranean Shipping Company SA (2001) 80 SASR 268
Inspector-General in Bankruptcy v Bradshaw [2006] FCA 22
Evans v R (2007) 82 ALJR 250; [2007] HCA 59

No. SC 261 of 2006

Judge: Master Harper
Supreme Court of the ACT

Date: 5 February 2010

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE )
) No. SC 261 of 2006
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY )

BETWEEN:PAUL JOHN HUGHES
Plaintiff

AND:JANRULE PTY LTD T/A GREGORY’S FORD
Defendant

ORDER

Judge:  Master Harper
Date:  5 February 2010
Place:  Canberra

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

Judgment be entered for the defendant

The plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs

This is an action for damages for personal injury by an employee against an employer. The plaintiff fell while descending a staircase. He claims that the fall was caused by his employer’s negligence.
I have arrived at the conclusion that the plaintiff’s claim fails. He has been unable to establish a breach of his employer’s duty of care to him. If I had found in his favour, I would not have found him guilty of any contributory negligence, and I would have assessed his damages at $193,009.26. My reasons for arriving at those conclusions follow.

The plaintiff

The plaintiff is thirty-one years of age. He lives in Canberra with his de facto wife and their two young children.
He grew up in Sydney. He left school soon after he turned fourteen, during year 8. He had done poorly at school. He had always had an interest in cars, which he retains. He found employment with a car detailing firm within a month of leaving school, and he worked there for three years, learning skills on the job. Although he has no formal trade qualifications, he has worked over the years mostly in car detailing and similar work.
He met his de facto wife in 2001, and they have generally lived…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

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Details

Case: [2010] ACTSC 5
Decision Date: 5 February 2010

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of Hughes v Janrule Pty Ltd was heard in the Supreme Court of Queensland. The plaintiff, Hughes, sought compensation for injuries sustained in a fall on a metal staircase at work. The dispute centred on whether the defendant, Janrule Pty Ltd, was negligent in maintaining the staircase, and whether this negligence contributed to Hughes' injuries. The court had to decide if the defendant breached its duty of care by not ensuring the staircase was safe, and if the injuries Hughes suffered were a result of this breach. The case also addressed the issue of whether the plaintiff's application to reopen the case and present additional evidence post-judgment should be allowed.

The central legal issues were whether the defendant's maintenance of the staircase was adequate, and whether the surface of the step was slippery, contributing to Hughes' fall. The court needed to determine if Janrule Pty Ltd fulfilled its duty to ensure the safety of the workplace, specifically regarding the staircase, and whether any breach of this duty caused Hughes' injuries. Additionally, the court assessed the relevance of Hughes' differing accounts of the incident to his credibility and the overall case outcome.

In its reasoning, the court noted that while it had observed the accident site, it had not intended to view a demonstration of the fall. It concluded that any such demonstration would not have altered the outcome, as the evidence already established the issues at hand. The court rejected the plaintiff's application to present further evidence, finding it would not impact the judgment. The court found that Hughes' injuries were not due to any breach by the defendant and that the plaintiff's varying accounts of the incident did not affect his credibility or the case's outcome. The court ultimately ruled in favour of the defendant, awarding costs to Janrule Pty Ltd.

The final orders of the court were to enter judgment in favour of the defendant, Janrule Pty Ltd, and to require the plaintiff, Hughes, to pay the defendant's costs. This decision was based on the court's determination that the defendant did not breach its duty of care regarding the safety of the workplace, and that any injuries Hughes sustained were not due to any such breach.

Orders

Orders of the court

1. Judgment be entered for the defendant

2. The plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs

Background

Background to the litigation

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Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

The following section is also of relevance:54 Views to be evidence The court (including, if there is a jury, the jury) may draw any reasonable inference from what it sees, hears or otherwise notices during a demonstration, experiment or inspection. It appears from the headings to the sections that, whilst the word “view” is not defined or indeed used in the body of the Act, it was used by the legislature, or at least by parliamentary counsel, as a general word to encompass demonstrations, experiments and inspections. At common law a view was an inspection and did not encompass a demonstration or experiment. For my part, I understood that the Court was being invited to inspect the premises where the accident occurred, and in particular the staircase on which the plaintiff fell. I did not understand that I was being invited to view a demonstration by the plaintiff of how he had fallen. I accept that those representing the defendant took the same view at the time as I did, and made no detailed observations or notes of what was later suggested by senior counsel for the plaintiff to have been a demonstration by his client of, in effect, how the accident had happened. It was put to the plaintiff in cross-examination that he had given an account of his fall to a number of people, including doctors he had seen for the purposes of the case. On some of those occasions he had given a history of putting his right foot onto the top step rather than his left. He denied that he had done so, and said that the doctors must have been mistaken. A number of medical reports were tendered by both sides, and in some of these the doctors had recorded what the plaintiff had told them about the accident consistently with what was put to the plaintiff by senior counsel for the defendant. None of the doctors was cross-examined. I take the view that it is more probable than not that the doctors accurately recorded what the plaintiff told them, and prefer the roughly contemporaneous reports of the doctors to the plaintiff’s recollection at trial. I am not inclined to place much significance on the question of which foot the plaintiff stepped off with. Since the hearing I have observed that I naturally step down on to the first step of a staircase with my left foot (I am right handed) but this is not something I was consciously aware of previously and I certainly could not have given a reliable answer to a question about it simply from memory. I would find it rather surprising if the plaintiff had a specific recollection of which foot he stepped off with immediately prior to his fall. All I can say on the evidence is that I accept that he probably did his best to remember when asked about it by his solicitors, doctors and others, and that he may have quite innocently given different answers because he had different recollections at different times. Apart from the fact that the plaintiff was reluctant to concede in cross-examination that he may have given different histories at different times about this, I do not see it as reflecting particularly on his credibility, nor do I see it as a factor of any significance in deciding the case.

Decision

Reasons for decision

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Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

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