Sydney Water Corporation v Turano

The High Court of Australia heard an appeal from the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales concerning the liability of Sydney Water Corporation. The dispute arose from a fatal storm in 2001 when a roadside tree fell onto a vehicle, causing death and injury to its occupants. The plaintiffs alleged that Sydney Water's installation of a water main in 1981 had altered subsoil drainage, compromising the tree's root system and leading to its eventual collapse. Sydney Water had not relied on section 43A of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) regarding the exercise of special statutory powers.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether Sydney Water owed a duty of care to the occupants of the vehicle and, if so, whether the death and injuries sustained were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the installation of the water main approximately 20 years prior. The court was required to consider the significance of the temporal gap between the alleged negligent conduct and the occurrence of the injury, as well as Sydney Water's lack of control over the tree during the intervening period.

The High Court allowed Sydney Water's appeal, finding that it did not owe a duty of care to the injured parties. The court reasoned that injury to road users as a result of the tree's collapse was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of laying the water main. Alternatively, the court concluded that in the absence of control over any risk posed by the tree in the years following the installation, there was not a sufficiently close and direct connection between Sydney Water and the injured persons for Sydney Water to be considered a "neighbour" in the sense contemplated by the principle of negligence. The court noted that while the water main's installation altered drainage and may have affected the tree's health, the risk of collapse and subsequent injury was too remote and attenuated by the passage of time and the intervening lack of control.