Illawarra Retirement Trust v Jesionkowski

The Supreme Court of New South Wales considered a claim by Ms. Jesionkowski against her employer, Illawarra Retirement Trust, for personal injuries sustained when she slipped on a wet floor at a nursing home. Ms. Jesionkowski alleged that her employer had breached its duty of care by failing to implement a reasonably safe system of work for cleaning floors, thereby exposing her to a foreseeable risk of injury.

The central legal issue before the Court was whether Illawarra Retirement Trust had been negligent in its system of cleaning, specifically whether an alternative cleaning method, such as cleaning at a different time, would have substantially reduced the risk of injury to Ms. Jesionkowski. The Court was required to determine if the employer had taken all reasonable precautions to prevent foreseeable harm to its employees.

The Court found that the employer had breached its duty of care. It reasoned that the risk of an employee slipping on a freshly mopped floor in a busy nursing home environment was reasonably foreseeable. The Court concluded that a reasonable employer would have implemented a system that minimised this risk, such as scheduling floor cleaning for times when the risk of pedestrian traffic was significantly lower, or providing adequate warning signs and barriers. The employer's failure to adopt such measures constituted a breach of its duty to provide a safe system of work.

The Court ordered that Illawarra Retirement Trust was liable for the personal injuries suffered by Ms. Jesionkowski.