Madbury Triangle Shopping Center Incident Essay

525 Words3 Pages
The appellant is the proprietor and lessor of the Modbury Triangle Shopping Centre ("the Centre"). The respondents are husband and wife. The first respondent (Tony) was employed by Focus Video Pty Ltd, a tenant of the appellant, as a co-manager of a video store in the Centre. The video shop faced the carpark which had four large lighting towers. Until about a year before the incident the subject of the proceedings, the lights would be left on until 11.00 pm. However, for some months prior to the incident in which Tony was injured, the carpark lighting had been turned off prior to the closure of the video shop. With the tower lights off at night the carpark and the area near the video shop was very dark. The video shop had complained on a number of occasions to the Centre management about the lack of lighting in the carpark whilst the video shop was open at night and at its closing time. It was Tony's practice when he left the video shop to check to see if anyone was about. If there was he would not leave the shop until that person had gone. In July 1983, after closing the shop at about 10.30 pm, Tony walked across the carpark towards…show more content…
One, that the appellant did not owe a duty of care to Tony and two, that if there was such a duty and the appellant was in breach of that duty, there was no causal link between the breach and the injury sustained. The Full Court agreed with the trial judge that there was a duty of care owed by a landlord to a tenant and, at least, to the employees of the tenant. The Full Court found that the extent of the duty here was to ensure that sufficient lights were on when workers and customers were at the Centre and that the duty had been breached. On the issue of causation the Full Court upheld the trial judge's conclusions that the failure to keep the lights on created the very situation in which the attack was likely to occur. The Full Court dismissed the

    More about Madbury Triangle Shopping Center Incident Essay

      Open Document