Bass v Visy Paper Pty Ltd

[2002] QSC 78

[iooaj G»SC 07s

Queensland Government

State Reporting Bureau Deportment of justice and Attorney-General

Transcript of Proceedings

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REVISED COPIES ISSUED

State Reporting Bureau

Date 2v! V

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CIVIL JURISDICTION

de JERSEY CJ

No 11103 of 2000

ANTHONY GEORGE BASS	Plaintiff
and
VISY PAPER PTY LTD	Defendant
BRISBANE ..DATE 13/03/2002
JUDGMENT

injury when he fell from a ladder while working for the

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defendant at the defendant's premises. The plaintiff has

sued the defendant for damages, and the defendant has joined

the third party. The defendant claims against the third

party damages for breach of contract in an amount equivalent

to the amount of any damages payable by the defendant to the

plaintiff.

In the third party statement of claim, the defendant alleges

breaches of duties contractually owed by the third party to

the defendant in respect of the plaintiff.

The third party represented by Mr Geraghty seeks an order under rule 171(1)(a) that the third party statement of claim be struck out as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. The application focuses attention on section 253(3) of the

WorkCover (Queensland) Act 1996 which confirms that (1) of

that section:

"Abolishes any entitlement of a person not mentioned in

the subsection to seek damages for an injury sustained

by a worker."

Mr Geraghty has submitted that the defendant1s claim against

the third party is "simply a claim for damages for an injury
sustained by a worker" and consequently barred by section

253 warranting its being struck out.

JUDGMENT

attention to the orientation of section 253 towards damages claims brought by workers against employers, that view

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gaining reinforcement from the definition of damages in

section 11, a matter to which reference was made in the

Court of Appeal in Karanfilov v Inghams Enterprises Pty Ltd

(2001) 2 Queensland Reports 273.

The issue is' whether the contractually based claim brought by the defendant against the third party seeks "damages for an injury sustained by a worker." The matter is not directly resolved by authority, but I consider that the

defendant's claim against the third party does not bear that

characterisation, and I would read those words literally as relating, with the support of section 11, to damages sought against the employer, which these are not.

For those reasons, the application is dismissed.

MR HOLYOAK: I ask for costs, your Honour.

MR GERAGHTY: I can't resist that, your Honour.

HIS HONOUR: No. With costs to be assessed.

JUDGMENT