Birch v Central West County District Council [1969] HCA 67

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan, Windeyer, Owen and Walsh JJ. Birch v Central West County District Council [1969] HCA 67

ORDER Appeal allowed with costs. Order of the Supreme Court of New South Wales set aside and in lieu thereof order that the appeal to that Court be dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Dec. 22 Barwick C.J.

A jury returned a verdict for the appellant for the sum of $36,350 in an action brought by him against the respondent in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The count of the appellant's declaration in the action which gave rise to the issue on which the jury so found alleged that:

The defendant by itself its servants and agents was so negligent careless and unskilful in and about the care control management supervision and inspection of the said electrical equipment and in and about the installation and maintenance of the said electrical equipment and in and about the supply of proper and adequate electrical equipment and in and about permitting the voltage of electricity supplied by it to the plaintiff to fall below a safe level and in and about erecting a transformer too remote from the plaintiff's premises and in and about failing to heed the plaintiff's warnings as to the condition and adequacy of a transformer that a fire started in the plaintiff's said premises causing loss and damage to the plaintiff.

The basic facts of the matter are not really in dispute. The appellant is a farmer in the Central Western District of New South Wales who at the time of the loss giving rise to his claim was engaged in growing vegetables for a local market. To hold his produce pending disposal he had two refrigerated rooms on his property. The local government area in which the appellant's farm is situated was at relevant times supplied with electricity by the respondent, an electricity supply authority within the meaning of the Electricity Development Act, 1945 N.S.W.. Electric current at a high voltage was carried by the respondent on high-tension wires and poles along a road which intersected the appellant's land. Prior to the year 1954, there had been a transformer placed some 300 yards from the point on the appellant's property at which electricity was supplied to his installations, a point which for convenience I will call the "metering point". Its function was to step down the voltage of the electricity brought to it by the high-tension system to 415/240 volts. Current at this latter voltage had been carried from this transformer to that metering point by low-tension wires. Up to this point of time the appellant's electrical equipment had consisted of household appliances and an electrically driven pump operating to raise and pump water for irrigation purposes.