NSW Caselaw
DOUGLAS v WATER ADMINISTRATION MINISTERIAL CORPORATION
SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL
MAHONEY AP, MEAGHER and SHELLER JJA 19-21, 24-25 July 1995, 12 September 1995
[1995] NSWCA 128
NEGLIGENCE — construction of a flood levee duty of care — reasonable engineering standards causation — s582A of Local Government Act 1919 — defence of good faith.
MINISTERIAL CORPORATION In April 1990 the town of Nyngan was flooded. The flood overtopped a levee which had been erected by the Bogan Shire Council (the Council) after seeking advice from the Water Administration Ministerial Corporation (WRC). The greater part of the levee was built to a height equal to the level reached by a 1976 flood plus one metre, referred to as the freeboard. The Tottenham Road Section and other parts of the levee including the Kokoda Trail and Bexon's Corner, in all about 1600 metres, were built to a lower height with a freeboard of 0.4 metre. During the days before the 1990 flood, sandbags were used to raise the height of these parts of the levee. Flood waters entered the town after the sandbag levee at the Kokoda Trail and Bexon's Corner were breached.
The plaintiffs were residents of the town. They sued the Council and the WRC to recover damages in negligence for loss of and damage to their property. They submitted that the Council which had built the levee, and WRC which approved the plans and supervised the construction, were negligent in failing to build the whole levee, other than the Tottenham Road Section, to the higher
level. The defendants denied the allegations of negligence and relied upon statutory defences based on good faith. On 10 March 1994 Cole J entered judgment in favour of both defendants. The appellants challenged the judgment in favour of WRC.
Cole J described the allegation of negligence as amorphous as it failed to specify any standard of protection, unless it could be said that the standard was that required by "reasonable engineering standards". His Honour said that
We try to embed the page this law was scraped from. If the site blocks framing, you still get the link and a local excerpt.
Last checked with source on —
Checking whether the official page can be embedded…
Plain-English simplify of this law: a short summary, key points, and both sides of the argument. Generated on first view via Replicate, then cached. Vote on what helps your study.
No study brief is cached for this law yet. Sign up to generate a plain-English brief.
Sign up to generate