1. This is a claim by your client, Georgina Lloyd, a 26 year-old, for injuries she sustained at the Taree Caravan Park/Camping Ground when she fell over a large rock when returning from the toilet in the early hours of the morning of 14 March 2016. There is no issue that Georgina was at the Caravan Park lawfully and as a paying guest and the Caravan Park accepts that it was an implied term of the contract between it and Georgina that the premises would be reasonably safe for her to use for the duration of the period of the agreement. The Caravan Park was the occupier of the premises at all relevant times.
2. The Caravan Park joined the third party, Mr.Preston, and seeks Indemnity or contribution from him if the Caravan Park is found liable to the Georgina. Mr. Preston was the Caravan Park’s workplace health and safety officer.
3. Georgina and her then partner Errol Ferguson, 28, arrived in his Nissan Pathfinder Vehicle, and booked into Caravan Park and Camping Ground at around 9.30 am on 13 March 2016, the Sunday of the Labour Day long weekend. They then visited their friends Mr and Mrs Hall at their caravan site located next to where Georgina and Errol ultimately pitched their tent later that day. They remained there for some 30 minutes before driving in convoy with the Halls on a daytrip to the beach.
4. Shortly before dusk, Georgina and Errol returned from the beach and erected their tent. At some time during or after that they and the Halls were watching some Lorikeets and Galahs, being photographs taken by Sonja, the 26 year old daughter of the Halls and best friend of Georgina from primary school days. The lighting in one of the photographs appears more abundant than in another of her photographs suggesting that the latter was taken some time closer to dusk than the first photograph. Significantly the first photograph shows a dark rock positioned between two posts, one with white paint on it immediately in front of the x-Trail four-wheel drive vehicle owned by the Halls and near the front of Georgina’s tent.
5. In one photograph the two posts can be clearly seen but the offending rock is almost invisible to the naked eye because of the fading light.
6. Georgina said she and Errol erected their three-man silver dome tent and tied the back of the tent to a huge tree-stump which is visible in another photograph, She said she saw the two posts but not the rock when erecting her tent.
7. That evening Georgina, Errol and the Halls went to dinner at the High Tide Hotel on the premises returning to camp at about 10.00 pm after a few more drinks at the Bar. They then chatted for a while and had a few more drinks with the Halls in their caravan annexe. Georgina retired at around 11.00 or 11.30 pm.
8. At about 2.00 am Georgina left her tent to visit the toilet facilities in the nearby amenities block. There was no defined path from her tent to the amenities block but a sketch prepared by Georgina showed the location of her camping site, and the path she took to and from the amenities block. The front of her tent faced the direction of the rock and the two posts, the former being positioned in a line to the right of the centre of the front exit flaps of her and Errol’s tent, if one was standing at the rock facing the tent, and about three feet away from them.
9. Georgina exited the front of the tent, turned left and walked around the corner of, and then along the left hand side of, the tent leaving the rock behind her. She then continued across a grass covered area leaving a vacant concrete caravan annexe pad on her left before crossing a gravel roadway. The amenities block was on the other side of that roadway.
10. On the return trip she followed generally the same general route in reverse except that, when reaching the tent, she walked along leaving its side on her right but walked a bit further out from it than on the trip to the toilet. As she rounded the front right-hand corner of the tent to her right (right hand side facing the front of the tent) she walked wider on that corner than she had earlier and fell over the rock incurring a large gash under her left knee requiring eighteen stitches.
11. Her evidence was that she tripped on a little ledge underneath the rock and ended up landing on top of the rock. The evidence of Mrs Hall was that she also visited the toilet some time earlier than Georgina and that at the time of the Georgina’s accident it was raining and was still raining when she and her daughter reported the incident to the defendant’s office. I consider that a photograph of the rock taken at night depicts a dark section at the bottom that could well be the ledge referred to. Certainly that photograph evidences sharp non-rounded edges on the rock near the middle and towards the top.
What you are required to do:
1. Set out what area/s of law Georgina’s claim could be framed in?
2. Identify the breaches, in general terms, that could be relied upon by Georgina and explain how they are relevant to the facts.
3. Explain whether the Caravan Park and/or Mr Preston will admit anything in relation to Georgina’s claim.
4. Explain what defences that the Caravan Park and Mr Preston will raise in relation to Georgina’s claim.
