Makita (Australia) Pty Ltd v Sprowles

Makita (Australia) Pty Ltd appealed to the New South Wales Court of Appeal against a judgment of the District Court which found it liable in negligence for injuries sustained by its employee, Mr. Sprowles. Mr. Sprowles had slipped and fallen on a set of stairs connecting a rooftop car park to the company's offices, sustaining injuries. The central dispute concerned whether Makita had breached its duty of care to provide a safe means of access for its employees.

The Court of Appeal was required to determine whether the trial judge erred in finding that the stairs were slippery and that Makita had failed to take reasonable precautions to prevent Mr. Sprowles' fall. A key issue was whether the trial judge was correct to reject certain expert evidence tendered by Makita concerning the slipperiness of the stairs, and whether this rejection constituted a misapplication of the principles governing the admissibility and use of expert evidence under the *Evidence Act 1995* (NSW). The court also considered, in obiter dicta, the credibility of party-witnesses in negligence claims.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's finding that the stairs were indeed slippery, despite the absence of prior reported accidents. The court reasoned that the trial judge was entitled to prefer the direct evidence of Mr. Sprowles and other witnesses regarding the condition of the stairs over the expert opinion evidence, which it found to be lacking in a proper factual and intellectual basis. The court affirmed that expert witnesses must reveal the factual and intellectual underpinnings of their opinions, and that a trial judge has a discretion to reject expert evidence that does not meet these requirements or is otherwise unpersuasive. The appeal was dismissed.