Watt v State of New South Wales [2018] NSWSC 1926

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Watt v State of New South Wales [2018] NSWSC 1926 Hearing dates: 23 – 27 October 2017;6 November 2017 Date of orders: 21 December 2018 Decision date: 21 December 2018 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Garling J Decision: (1) Verdict and Judgment for the plaintiff against the defendant in a sum to be calculated. (2) Counsel to confer and agree upon the appropriate short minutes of order. (3) Stand proceedings over to 2.00pm on Friday 1 February 2019 for the making of final orders and the determination of any outstanding issue as to costs. (4) Liberty to either party to apply to the Court on 24 hours' notice. Catchwords: TORTS – negligence – personal injury – where remand inmate was assaulted by another prisoner – scope of duty of prison authority to protect inmates under its control – breach of duty of care – where prison authority had actual knowledge of assailant's violent and unpredictable nature – where staff on duty at the time of the assault had no knowledge of assailant's history and background – where earlier altercations between the plaintiff and the assailant had occurred on the same morning – where corrective staff failed to confiscate the weapon ultimately used in the assault – duty of care and breach of duty established

TORTS – causation – no question of principle

TORTS – defences – reliance upon Civil Liability Act 2002, s 54 – alleged that plaintiff's injury was suffered at the time of or following conduct constituting a serious offence – where plaintiff and assailant were involved in an earlier altercation in another area of the prison on the same morning – consideration of context and purpose of that section – temporal limitation not satisfied – not proved that plaintiff's conduct constituted a serious offence – defence not made out