Woods v Multi-Sport Holdings Pty Ltd [2002] HCA 9

HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

GLEESON CJ,

McHUGH, KIRBY, HAYNE AND CALLINAN JJ

MICHAEL BRETT WOODS APPELLANT

AND

MULTI-SPORT HOLDINGS PTY LTD RESPONDENT

Woods v Multi-Sport Holdings Pty Ltd [2002] HCA 9

7 March 2002

P93/2000

ORDER

Appeal dismissed with costs.

On appeal from the Supreme Court of Western Australia

Representation:

B S Spinks for the appellant (instructed by Marks & Sands)

R J L McCormack for the respondent (instructed by Srdarov Richards Burton)

Notice: This copy of the Court's Reasons for Judgment is subject to formal revision prior to publication in the Commonwealth Law Reports.

CATCHWORDS

Woods v Multi-Sport Holdings Pty Ltd

Negligence – Occupier's liability – Duty of care – Eye injury suffered by player of indoor cricket – Failure to provide protective helmet – Failure to warn of specific risk of eye injury – Whether conduct of occupier reasonable in the circumstances – Relevance of industry practice and rules of game – Relevance of obviousness of risk – Voluntary assumption of risk – Causation of damage.

1. GLEESON CJ. The appellant suffered serious injury to an eye while playing indoor cricket. The game was being played at a facility, owned and operated, as a business, by the respondent. The respondent organised the game in which the appellant was playing, and provided the equipment used by the players. The equipment included bats, balls, thin hand gloves, and groin protectors, but not helmets or pads. The appellant sued for damages in the District Court of Western Australia. Although various causes of action were pleaded, the claim was ultimately treated as founded in negligence. The trial judge, French DCJ accepted that the respondent owed a duty of care to the appellant. Indeed, the existence of a duty was not in dispute; it was the content of the duty and, in particular, whether there had been a breach of duty, that was the principal area of contention. French DCJ considered that, because the respondent organised and controlled the games that were played at its facility, its responsibility to players went beyond the state of the premises. It had a duty under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1985 (WA) but it also had a wider duty to "take reasonable steps to avoid the risk of injury to players arising from the dangers involved in playing indoor cricket". That formulation of the duty was not challenged in argument in this Court. The argument was about the steps the respondent ought reasonably to have taken. If the trial had been before a judge and jury, that would have been a question for the jury to decide as the tribunal of fact. There was no jury, and the issue was one for the trial judge. But it was one for her factual judgment, in the light of the circumstances of the case. 2. There were two respects in which it was ultimately contended that the respondent had failed to take reasonable steps to avoid the risk of injury to players, including the appellant. The trial judge concluded that in neither respect had there been any such failure, because reasonableness did not require those steps to be taken. In brief, she accepted the appellant's case as to the duty of care, but rejected the allegation that there had been a breach of duty. That conclusion was upheld by the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Western Australia[1]. 3. In order to explain the basis of the trial judge's reasoning it is convenient to begin by referring to some of the evidence about the sport of indoor cricket.