Public Liability Claims in Australia

Who is responsible when you are injured on someone else’s property?

The person or organisation that controlled the premises or the activity owes a duty to take reasonable care for people who come there. Being hurt on their property is not enough; you must show the risk was foreseeable and not insignificant, and that a reasonable occupier would have done something about it.

Common public liability claims include:

• Slips and trips in shopping centres, supermarkets and car parks.
• Footpaths, roads and parks controlled by councils and public authorities.
• Rental properties where a landlord or agent failed to fix a hazard.
• Venues, events and sporting facilities, including crowd and equipment injuries.
• Dog attacks and injuries caused by animals.
• Schools, childcare and aged care where supervision or maintenance failed.

Public authorities have extra protections under the civil liability Acts, and recreational activities with obvious risks can be excluded. Those defences make the facts, and the evidence you keep, decisive.

What you need to prove

A public liability claim has four elements: a duty of care, a breach of that duty, causation and damage. In practice the evidence you need is:

1. The hazard. What it was, how long it had been there and whether it was reported before. Photographs taken at the time are worth more than anything reconstructed later.
2. The occupier’s system. Cleaning schedules, inspection logs, incident registers and CCTV. A lawyer can ask for these, and many occupiers destroy footage within weeks.
3. Your injury. Medical records from the first visit onward, linking the injury to the incident.
4. Your losses. Time off work, treatment costs, care from family and the effect on daily life.

Contributory negligence is a common defence: the occupier argues you were not looking, wore unsuitable shoes or ignored a warning. It reduces damages rather than defeating the claim, but it is one more reason to record the scene accurately.

Thresholds and caps that shape what you can claim

Every state limits damages for negligence in some way, and the limits fall hardest on smaller injuries.

• New South Wales. No damages for non-economic loss unless the severity is at least 15% of a most extreme case (Civil Liability Act 2002 s 16).
• Victoria. Non-economic loss requires a “significant injury”: more than 5% whole person impairment for most physical injuries, 5% or more for spinal injuries and 10% or more for psychiatric injury, assessed by an approved practitioner (Department of Justice and Community Safety Victoria).
• Queensland. General damages are scored on an injury scale value from 0 to 100, with 0 meaning no award (Civil Liability Act 2003).

Economic loss, treatment and care are assessed separately and are not subject to the same threshold, so a claim can still be worthwhile for an injury that does not clear the non-economic loss bar. The damages guide explains each head and the compensation calculator shows an indicative range and which heads appear open to you.

Time limits and pre-court steps by state

If the injury happened at work, or while you were working at someone else’s premises, workers compensation may apply first; see the workplace injury guide. If a vehicle was involved, the car accident guide explains the CTP route.

What to do now

• Report the incident to the occupier or manager and keep a copy or reference number.
• Photograph the hazard, the surroundings and your footwear, only if it is safe.
• Get the names of witnesses and staff who attended.
• See a doctor promptly and describe exactly how it happened.
• Keep receipts, a diary of symptoms and a note of help you needed at home.
• Ask early whether CCTV exists; a lawyer can send a preservation request.

Our slip, trip and fall guide covers the evidence for falls in more detail, and the free claim check takes two minutes.

Frequently asked questions