Commissioner for Railways (Q) v Ruprecht [1979] HCA 37

High Court of Australia Gibbs, Stephen, Mason, Murphy and Wilson JJ. Commissioner for Railways (Q) v Ruprecht [1979] HCA 37

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

The following written reasons for judgment were published:—

Aug. 20 Gibbs J.

The present respondent brought an action in the Supreme Court of Queensland against the appellant, the Commissioner for Railways, for damages for personal injuries sustained by the negligence of one Caddies, an employee of the Commissioner. The learned trial judge, Lucas J., found that Caddies had been guilty of negligence and declined to make a finding of contributory negligence against the respondent and gave judgment for the respondent for a sum of damages which he assessed. An appeal was brought to the Full Court of the Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal on the issues of negligence and contributory negligence but allowed it as to damages; however, we are not concerned with the question of damages.

There is no challenge to the ultimate facts as found in the Supreme Court. On 18th July 1974 the respondent was injured when he was struck by a railway wagon which was being shunted in the Commissioner's railway yards at Townsville. The respondent was then employed by the Commissioner as an acting foreman shunter and Caddies was employed as an acting shunter in charge. The latter position is subordinate to the former; the foreman shunter instructs the shunter in charge to shunt particular wagons on to particular lines, and it is the duty of the shunter in charge to arrange for his crew to give effect to those instructions. The normal method of shunting was to use a locomotive to propel the wagons which were to be shunted and which, when uncoupled, would run under their own momentum to the destination to which the points had been set. It was the responsibility of the shunter in charge to decide when the actual movement of a wagon should commence. The south yard, in which the accident occurred, contained a number of railway lines, or roads as they were called, on to which wagons might be shunted. There were over a dozen such lines which converged in the shunting straight which led to the north yard. The respondent was walking across one of the lines, known as the Mid Road, when he was struck by a QFX wagon which had travelled from the shunting straight after the team under the control of Caddies had put it in motion.