Annetts V Australian Stations (2002) - Business Law Case Discussion

Discuss about the Business Law Annetts v Australian Stations (2002).

In the case of Annetts v Australian Station (2002) 211 CLR 317 acts as a leading matter in the cases related to psychiatric injury, under the tort of negligence and the resultant injuries. In this case, the duty of care which the defendant owed towards the son of the plaintiff, which led to the death of the son, owing to the mental harm was evaluated by the court. The defendant was alleged to have breached his duty of care, which resulted in psychiatric injury to the plaintiff, which was deemed as the plaintiff being harmed. However, in this case, the claims of thee plaintiff were rejected by the court of law (Sappideen, 2009).

In the following parts, the case from the perspective of defendant has been analyzed and the decision of the court, along with the rationale behind reaching this decision has been covered. But before initiating the discussion of the defendant’s arguments, the facts of the case have been highlighted.

The son of applicants, James Annetts, in August of 1986, left his family home in NSW and went to work for the defendant in Western Australia. He was of sixteen at that time (Quizlet, 2017). The mother of James had, before he left to work for the defendant, called him and asked him about the conditions on which James was supposed to work. She was told that James would be working at the Flora Valley and that he would be under constant supervision, that he would be well looked after and would be sharing room with other men (Federation Press, 2017).

Even though the assurances were given, Lodger assigned James on October 13^th 1986 to work alone as the Nicholson Station’s caretaker, which was located hundred kilometers away from where he was promised to be working, i.e., Flora Valley, where he actually worked only for seven weeks. The defendant came to know of the disappearance of the respondent on December 03^rd 1986 and he had reasons to suspect that he was in great danger of dying or getting injured. Until December 06^th 1986, the plaintiff was not made aware about their son being missing. One of the NSW police officers called the father of James and informed him that James had ran away. Since the father collapsed hearing this news, the mother continued this conversation. After a lot of search for James, through a skeleton he was identified on April 29^th 1987. Later on the parties came to know that James had died on December 04^th 1986 due to dehydration, hypothermia and exhaustion in Gibson dessert (Federation Press, 2017). The plaintiff blamed the negligence of defendant for the death of their son. Along with this, they also made a case for the psychiatric injury caused to them when they learned about the death of their son (Health Law Central, 2017).

First and foremost, the defendant would like to offer their condolences to the family for their grave loss. We would like to confirm that the applicant had indeed made certain inquires regarding the agents or servants under the ensuing arrangement, specially pertaining to her son’s safety and we had assured the plaintiff that their son would be properly taken care of. However, the defendant would like to highlight that they had taken steps to locate James as soon as they doubted that he might be in danger.

Defendant’s arguments

A claim has been made against the defendant for the negligence on their part. In order to show that the defendant was not negligent, the basics of negligence have to be revisited. To establish a case of negligence, certain elements are required to be present (Harvey and Marston, 2009). These include a duty of care, its contravention, resulting loss, foreseeability of loss, causation and losses not being too remote (Gibson and Fraser, 2014). The duty of care can be established with the help of the three fold test given in Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605 (E-Law Resources, 2017). In this case, the House of Lords stated that in order to establish a duty of care, there has to be a reasonable foreseeability in the risk of harm, there has to be proximity between the parties and the penalties imposed have to be such which can be deemed as reasonable, fair and just (Lunney and Oliphant, 2013).

In this particular instance, the defendant would like to highlight that the duty of care was not owed by defendant to the plaintiff. This is because there is no direct link between the plaintiff and the defendant. The psychiatric injury was not something, which could have been foreseeable in a reasonable manner by the plaintiff. The psychiatric injury did not have a direct causation with the negligence or actions of defendant. Hence, the imposed penalties cannot be just. So a duty of care was not present towards the plaintiff (Australasian Legal Information Institute, 2017).

The case of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100futher affirms this point. In this case, the manufacturer, due to the reasons of being the producer of the product had a duty of care towards the plaintiff and even the presence of dead snail made the losses foreseeable (Latimer, 2012). The defendant in the case of Annetts v Australian Station could never have known that news of the death of son could cause psychiatric injury to the plaintiff and the same was not foreseeable as no one could have predicted that James would die. Hence, a duty of care was not present in the given case. Another point which the defendant would like to raise is that there was negligence on part of the defendant themselves. This is evident from the fact that they sent their underage son to work with a stranger at a completely new place (Australasian Legal Information Institute, 2017).

The defendant would also like to highlight the view taken by the judges in Wyong Shire Council v. Shirt (1980) 146 CLR 40. The judges had stated that in order to establish that the risk of harm was indeed foreseeable or not, the view or notions of a reasonable individual had to be considered (Jade, 2017). No one could have forecasted that James would wander off and eventually die. He was not supposed to leave the place where he was placed. And so, a reasonable person could not have forecasted the death of James. And the psychiatric injury was also not foreseeable on part of a reasonable individual, as the risk of such injury was not present (Australasian Legal Information Institute, 2017).

The proximity of the relationship, along with the reasonable foreseeability was highlighted by Deane J in Jaensch v Coffey [1984] HCA 52. He stated that to acknowledge that an individual has the capability of predicting, the particular circumstances have to be contemplated. And along with this, the kind of relationship which attracts a lawful duty of acting with reasonable care for the other’s interest has to be evaluated. So, the foreseeability of harm, in addition to the nature of relationship between the two parties is to be taken as criteria of responsibility (Swarb, 2015).

To consider the relationship, the type of work which has been delegated to the employee has to be considered. The defendant agrees that he owed a duty of care towards James, but his duty of care was for the work he was assigned. And if James decided to take off and go somewhere, where he eventually died, cannot be stated as being the breach of duty of care on part of the defendant. This is because the defendant could not have predicted that James would take off like that. The part regarding the psychiatric injury has no legal backing. Even though, in cases of negligence a claim for psychiatric injury can be made. But for that, the elements of negligence have to be satisfied. Here, the duty of care was not present towards the present. And there was no legal relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant. The duty of care which was owed by the defendant was only towards the deceased son of the plaintiff and that too which was reasonable on the basis of quoted cases (Australasian Legal Information Institute, 2017).

The defendant would also like to show that a psychiatric injury has to be a sudden shock or has to be direct perception, or the immediate aftermath.  In this case, the news of disappearance of their son was given to Mr. and Mrs. Annetts in a phased manner and the news of the death was conveyed over a period of time and at a distance. There was nothing immediate or shocking in it, instead it was agonizingly protracted. Starvation and exhaustion is not something which many have witnessed. And so, there has to be a difference in sudden shock which Annetts received, and what such parents received when they saw their son being run down by a motor car. Hence, the defendant would like to conclude that there is both a relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant and the foreseeability of such a loss (Australasian Legal Information Institute, 2017).

In this case, the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Western Australia unanimously dismissed the appeal made by the plaintiff. The judgment, which is considered as a leading one in this regard, was delivered by Ipp J. In his views, before imposing a duty of care over the defendant for the nervous shock suffered by the plaintiff, the same has to be reasonably foreseeable. A normal fortitude was assumed on part of the plaintiff and the normal standards of susceptibility had to be exhibited in order for the plaintiff to develop the stated psychiatric illness. And secondly, a sudden sensory perception has to be resulted from the contravention of duty of care, in both temporal and physical manner on part of the plaintiff. And this had to be present for an event which was deemed as so distressful that the plaintiff would suffer from a psychiatric illness which was recognizable in nature (Allens, 2017).

On the basis of these two points, the imposition of duty of care over the defendant in this case was rejected by the Court of Appeals. It was stated by the court that it could not be held as reasonably foreseeable with regards to the normal fortitude which may uphold a claim for such injury, on the basis of simple fact that the child of the plaintiff had died. An ordinary incident of life is loss of a child and a recognized psychiatric injury is a separate aspect and a different class of harm. There was also a failure on part of the plaintiff to show to the satisfaction of the court that there was a physical proximity between the plaintiff and the defendant in the sense of time and space. They believed that a duty of care was not present as the psychiatric injury occurred quite far from the place of accident and even after the accident had taken place. Hence, the plaintiff was required to appreciate that their son had die, without the fault of the defendant. And so, the appeal of the plaintiff was dismissed (Allens, 2017).

References

Allens. (2017) 2001 Annual Review Of Insurance Law - Duty Of Care, General Tortious And Trade Practices Act Liability. [Online] Allens. Available from: https://www.allens.com.au/pubs/ari/2001/care.htm [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

Australasian Legal Information Institute. (2017) Tame v New South Wales [2002] HCA 35; 211 CLR 317; 191 ALR 449; 76 ALJR 1348 (5 September 2002). [Online] Australasian Legal Information Institute. Available from: https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/2002/35.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=Annetts%20v%20Australian%20Station [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

E-Law Resources. (2017) Caparo Industries pIc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605  House of Lords. [Online] E-Law Resources. Available from: https://www.healthlawcentral.com/cases/tame-v-new-south-wales/ [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

Federation Press. (2017) Tame v New South Wales Annetts v Australian Stations Pty Ltd. [Online] Federation Press. Available from: https://www.federationpress.com.au/pdf/Tame%20v%20New%20South%20Wales.pdf [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

Gibson, A., and Fraser, D. (2014) Business Law 2014. 8^th ed. Melbourne: Pearson Education Australia.

Harvey, B., and Marston, J. (2009) Cases and Commentary on Tort. 6^th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Health Law Central. (2017) Tame v New South Wales; Annetts v Australian Stations Pty Limited [2002] HCA 35. [Online] Health Law Central. Available from: https://www.healthlawcentral.com/cases/tame-v-new-south-wales/ [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

Jade. (2017) Glendale Chemical Products Pty Ltd v Australian Competition & Consumer Commission & Anor [1998] FCA 1571; 90 FCR 40. [Online] Jade. Available from: https://jade.io/j/?a=outline&id=116054 [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

Latimer, P. (2012) Australian Business Law 2012. 31^st ed. Sydney, NSW: CCH Australia Limited.

Lunney, M., and Oliphant, K. (2013) Tort Law: Text and Materials. 5^th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Quizlet. (2017) Torts B Lecture #1-->Pure Psychiatric Harm. [Online] Quizlet. Available from: https://quizlet.com/45679268/torts-b-lecture-1-pure-psychiatric-harm-flash-cards/ [Accessed on: 19/05/17]

Sappideen, C., at al. (2009) Torts, Commentary and Materials. 10^th ed. Pyrmont: Lawbook Co, pp. 255-63.

Swarb. (2015) Jaensch v Coffey; 20 Aug 1984. [Online] Swarb. Available from: https://swarb.co.uk/jaensch-v-coffey-20-aug-1984/ [Accessed on: 19/05/17]