Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd
| Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court | High Court of Australia |
| Full case name | Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd |
| Decided | 24 March 1994 |
| Citations | (1994) 179 CLR 520, [1994] HCA 13 |
| Case history | |
| Prior action | Mabo v The State of Queensland (1988) |
| Subsequent action | none |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | Mason CJ, Brennan, Deane, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron & McHugh JJ |
| Case opinions | |
| (5:2) Authority liable to General Jones under ordinary principles of negligence; appeal dismissed. (per Mason CJ, Deane, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron JJ) | |
Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd (1994) 179 CLR 520 is a tort law case from the High Court of Australia, which decided it would abolish the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher.
Facts
A fire, caused by an independent contractor’s employee welding negligently, began on the defendant’s premises and spread to a nearby property. The property was burnt. The plaintiff sued under nuisance, negligence and the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher.
Judgment
The High Court held that Rylands involved ‘quite unacceptable uncertainty’ (540). It said that Blackburn J’s formulation had been ‘all but obliterated by subsequent judicial explanations and qualifications’ (536). And at the time of Rylands, negligence liability was limited to ‘a miscellany of disparate categories of cases’ and only with Heaven v. Pender (1883) 11 QBD 503 and Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] AC 562, 580 was liability grounded on general foreseeability (543). The justices therefore felt that the rule should be done away with and so the independent contractor was not liable under that, but could only be culpable in the law of negligence.
Procedural History
- Supreme Court of Tasmania: found for the plaintiff against the defendant on the grounds of the ignis suus rule.
- Defendant appealed to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Tasmania: found for the plaintiff on the basis of Rylands v Fletcher principle. The grounds of nuisance and negligence were not appealed.
- Appealed to the High Court of Australia
See also
External links
Burnie Port Authority v General Jones Pty Ltd [1994] HCA 13; (1994) 179 CLR 520; (1994) Aust Torts Reports 81-264; (1994) 120 ALR 42; (1994) 68 ALJR 331 (24 March 1994).