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A case heard in NSW in 2017 involved a drunken motorcycle accident.

At 5.15 in the morning following a night of heavy drinking, two men who were friends each rode an unregistered off-road motorcycle (trail bike) on a public road in New South Wales. The two men subsequently become the plaintiff and defendant in this case.

Neither motorcycle was fitted with a headlight. While travelling in opposite directions along the road, the two trail bikes were involved in what was effectively a head-on collision.

The collision occurred on the plaintiff’s side of the road, about 1.5 metres from the centre line on the road. The bikes both collided on their left-hand side, which meant the defendant’s motorbike had to have crossed the path of the plaintiff’s bike before they collided.

The plaintiff was wearing a motorcycle helmet, but the defendant was not. While the plaintiff was unlicensed, he did have considerable experience riding trail bikes.

Adjusting your watch for daylight saving isn’t the only thing to remember when you cross the border from NSW to Queensland, or vice versa – particularly if you are involved in an accident. What you need to do in NSW and Queensland following an accident If you have a vehicle accident in NSW resulting in […]

A case in Queensland revolved around the question of whether a man was negligent when he accidentally injured his colleague with a knife.

A construction worker was walking along a footpath adjacent to a building site, returning at the end of lunchbreak from his parked car, when he suddenly felt a shooting pain his hand and realised he had been stabbed by his coworker’s knife.

At the time of the incident, the coworker was on his lunchbreak on a grassed area immediately adjacent to the site, as there was no designated eating area. Workers frequently traversed this grassed area.

The coworker had been crouching down, peeling an orange with a long, sharp knife that he used on the site to remove and replace asphalt.

Just as he stood up from his crouched position while still holding the unsheathed knife, the construction worker walked past.

Without any intention to do so, the coworker stabbed the construction worker in his left hand.

The construction worker suffered damage to nerves in two of his fingers, tendons in one of them and arteries in another. He developed ongoing symptoms which impaired his ability to participate in many former activities, and he developed major depression.

An athlete had participated in multiple triathlon events leading up to a triathlon in Queensland. Due to poor weather conditions, the event was changed to a duathlon with a run, cycle, run format. The athlete was disappointed in this change because swimming was her strongest skill. Nevertheless, she chose to participate in the event.

The triathlon had able-bodied athletes competing on the same course with para-athletes. During the first leg of the event, the athlete heard yelling and swearing moments before being knocked to the ground by a para-athlete in a racing wheelchair.

She remembered the para-athlete ricocheting out of the wheelchair and hitting the ground, but little else. As a result of this event, the athlete suffered a brain injury and psychiatric injury, as well as some other relatively minor physical injuries.

A man worked as a truck driver from September 2011 until May 2014.  

Periodically, he was assigned a truck with a defective seat. He drove this truck for six weeks in 2013 and again from early 2014 until 19 May 2014.  

On that day, he informed his shift supervisor that his back was sore and they agreed that from the following shift he would drive a different truck with a fully functioning seat.  

He consulted a GP on 29 May 2014, who noted that he had a ten day history of back spasms and also that the seat on the truck was broken.  

On 30 May 2014, the GP certified the truck driver for a period of three and a half weeks off work.  

The plaintiff was the maintenance manager of a meat processing plant. He finished work at 3:30pm on a Friday, 12 June 2015, and met a friend at a hotel where they each had two schooners of mid-strength beer.

While driving home past his workplace at about 5pm, he noticed large plumes of steam venting from some large tanks due to a malfunctioning relief valve.

He phoned the boiler contractor, who told him that it was time-critical for him to find out which valve the leak was coming from before the steam ran out. This was so that the leak could be repaired on the weekend and the plant could open on Monday, as the tanks were essential to the processing.

A recent duty of care case involved a man who was walking inside The Star casino in Sydney when he slipped on liquid that had been spilled on the polished marble floor, causing him to fall to the ground. Attendants immediately called for medical assistance and he was treated before being taken to hospital by […]

On 1 November 2015, the sales assistant was behind the counter at a jewellery shop performing her usual duties.

The jewellery shop was open to a public arcade within a shopping centre and customers could access the shop simply by walking from the arcade area into the shop area.

At approximately 2pm, a male assailant posing as a customer entered the shop and asked the sales assistant the price of a necklace in the display cabinet. The sales assistant replied that the price was $13,000.

The assailant then asked if that was the best price, prompting the sales assistant to remove the necklace from the display cabinet and scan it at a nearby cash register.

In early September 2008, a woman, who was then 43, began suffering from neck pain and headaches. She consulted a chiropractor, but the pain and headaches continued.

The woman consulted her GP due to worsening neck pain, severe headaches and facial flushing. The GP advised her to continue with chiropractic treatment and with the pain medication she was currently taking.

Lodging a successful compensation claim in Queensland can hinge on a number of factors, many of which are time-critical. Being injured in an accident can have significant ramifications for all aspects of a person’s life, from their overall wellbeing to their ability to work and earn a living. A compensation claim can ease the strain […]

The first question most people ask regarding compensation is how much money they can expect to receive. There are a number of factors at play in determining the total sum of a claim and, for this reason, there is no clear-cut answer. The factors to consider include: the circumstances of the accident; the nature and […]