Case Summary

Australian Safeway Stores Pty Ltd v Zaluzna (1987) 162 CLR 479

Tort; Negligence; the duty of care; foreseeability of harm; occupiers.

Facts: Zaluzna went to the Safeway supermarket to buy some cheese. It was a rainy day and the floor at the shop entrance had become wet and slippery. Zaluzna slipped on the wet floor, fell and was injured. Zaluzna sued the supermarket in Negligence.

Issue: Do special rules apply when deciding whether occupiers of premises owe a duty of care to persons entering the premises?

Decision: It was not appropriate to apply special rules. A court should apply the ordinary principles of Negligence in such cases.

Reason: The court approved (at [11]) the following statement of Deane J in Hackshaw v Shaw (1984) 155 CLR 614:

"All that is necessary is to determine whether, in all the relevant circumstances including the fact of the defendant's occupation of the premises and the manner of the plaintiff's entry upon them, the defendant owed a duty of care under the ordinary principles of negligence to the plaintiff. ... The touchstone of its existence is that there be reasonable foreseeability of a real risk of injury to the visitor or to the class of person of which the visitor is a member. The measure of the discharge of the duty is what a reasonable man would, in the circumstances, do by way of response to the foreseeable risk."