Fuller-Lyons v New South Wales [2015] HCA 31: Damages after Train Fall
Wednesday 2 September 2015 @ 12.14 p.m. | Legal Research
The High Court of Australia has today (2 September 2015) settled a fourteen year old case by ruling in favour of the appellant, Corey Fuller-Lyons, and finding negligence on the part of the State of New South Wales. In the case of Corey Travis Fuller-Lyons by his Tutor Nita Lyons v State of New South Wales [2015] HCA 31, the Court allowed an appeal from the New South Wales Court of Appeal and restored the primary judge’s award of damages to the appellant.
Factual Background
The matter goes back to 2001 when the appellant, who was then aged eight, fell out the doors of a train two minutes after it departed Morisset Station. The facts of the case then become blurred as there was no direct evidence to explain how the child had fallen from the train. Expert evidence provided that the doors were fitted with electro-pneumatic locking motors which were centrally operated by the guard on the train. The evidence further testified that once the doors were locked, they could not prised open.
Original Hearing
The primary judge inferred that from the evidence of the locking mechanism of the train, the doors could not have been locked at the time the child fell. The primary judge therefore concluded that the only realistic option the appellant could have fell from the train was if he had wedged himself between the doors as they were closing and had pushed against one door with his back and the other with his legs. The primary judge found this to be the most likely scenario that led to the child falling from the train. Consequently, he held the State vicariously liable for the negligent failure of railway employees to keep a proper lookout that would’ve identified the wedged child before signaling for the train to depart.
On Appeal
The State appealed the decision and was successful. The Court of Appeal accepted the primary judge’s inferential finding of the events that led to the fall. However, the Court of Appeal heard evidence of equally probable alternative hypotheses available to explain how the appellant came to fall that did not entail negligence on the part of railway employees.
High Court Decision
The High Court disagreed with the Court of Appeal’s finding. The High Court ruled that while there were other possible alternative hypotheses that would’ve had led to the accident, the primary judge’s inferential finding was ultimately the most likely by a large measure. It was a correct finding notwithstanding that other possible explanations could not be excluded. The Court thus ruled that the Court of Appeal had erred in rejecting the primary judge’s ruling and the original award of $1.5m in damages was reinstated for the appellant.
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