Hampton Court Ltd v Crooks [1957] HCA 28

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan, Fullagar, Kitto and Taylor JJ. Hampton Court Ltd v Crooks [1957] HCA 28

ORDER Appeal allowed. Cross-appeal dismissed. Order of the Supreme Court of New South Wales discharged. In lieu thereof set aside the verdict of the jury and enter a verdict and judgment for the defendant the appellant in this Court. The parties to abide their costs in this Court and of all proceedings in the Supreme Court.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:

May 6 Dixon C.J.

I have had the advantage of reading the judgment prepared by McTiernan, Fullagar, Kitto and Taylor JJ. and agree in it subject to two observations which I desire to make. The first is that on the assumption, which I accept, that the jury might reasonably find the cause of the plaintiff's injuries to be the presence on the floor of a wet substance of a greasy nature covering an area of eighteen inches by two or three inches, I do not think that proof of this fact was enough to enable the jury to infer negligence on the part of the defendant: proof was necessary of some additional circumstances tending, for example, to raise a probability of its having been there long enough to be seen if reasonable supervision were practised, or to show that so many people were likely to use the lavatory in the preceding hour that closer control was called for, or that the dropping of some such substance was common or inherently likely to occur. But very little might have been enough. For the case is one where the facts can hardly be within the knowledge of the plaintiff and, at all events so far as concerns the care and control of the premises and the precautions taken, must be peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendant: cf. per Isaacs J., Morgan v. Babcock & Wilcox Ltd. [5] and the cases there cited. But a plaintiff is not relieved of the necessity of offering some evidence of negligence by the fact that the material circumstances are peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendant; all that it means is that slight evidence may be enough unless explained away by the defendant and that the evidence should be weighed according to the power of the party to produce it, in accordance with the often repeated observation of Lord Mansfield in Blatch v. Archer [1] : cf. Parker v. Paton [2] ; Ex parte Ferguson; Re Alexander [3] .