Most people hurt in a public place assume the question is whether the place was safe. It is not. A public liability claim in Queensland turns on two narrower questions: who owed a duty over the part of the place where the injury happened, and whether their failure to deal with the risk was unreasonable.
The framework is the same in a shopping centre, on a council footpath or in a park. What changes is who sits opposite, because public authorities have protections that private occupiers do not.
Who is responsible for a public place
No duty is owed by the place. Control of the area is the usual starting point for working out who owed one, and in a large centre control is rarely in a single pair of hands. The owner usually holds entrances, walkways and the car park; a shop holds its own floor; cleaning is often contracted out, and a contractor can owe a duty alongside the occupier.
| Where the injury happened | Who usually controls it | What that changes |
|---|---|---|
| Centre walkway, entrance, amenities or car park | Centre owner or manager, often through a contractor | Inspection and cleaning records are usually the key evidence |
| Inside an individual shop | The tenant operating that shop | The centre may not be the right respondent |
| Footpath, park or playground | The local government | Authority protections apply too |
The legislation deals with not knowing which of them to approach. Under the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld), a person given part 1 of a notice of claim must reply in writing within 1 month, and if they say they are not the proper respondent they must give reasons and any information they hold that may help identify who is, on a maximum penalty of 100 penalty units: s 10(1).
What the Act actually asks
The Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld) does not say who owes a duty. It sets the test for breach of one: there is no breach unless the risk was foreseeable, the risk was not insignificant, and a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would have taken the precautions: s 9(1). The focus is the precaution, not the accident. What the court weighs is the probability of harm if care were not taken, its likely seriousness, the burden of the precaution, and the social utility of the activity: s 9(2). That is why a supermarket case is rarely about the spill and almost always about the inspection system.
Causation is separate, with two elements: the breach must have been a necessary condition of the harm, and it must be appropriate for liability to extend to it: s 11(1). Where what the injured person would have done matters, the Act decides that subjectively but makes their own later statement about it inadmissible unless it is against their interest: s 11(3). That is a narrow rule about one hypothetical question, not a general preference for records over recollection.
Obvious risk, and what it does not mean
An obvious risk is one that would have been obvious to a reasonable person in the injured person’s position: s 13(1). It can be obvious although the chance of it happening was low, and even if it was not prominent, conspicuous or physically observable: s 13(3) and (4).
The limit is the part usually left out. A risk from a thing is not an obvious risk if it was created by a failure to properly operate, maintain, replace, prepare or care for that thing, unless the failure itself was obvious: s 13(5). A wet floor under a leaking refrigerator, a cracked paver, a handrail never re-fixed: where the risk really was created that way, it is not an obvious risk at all. Whether it was is a question of fact.
Where a risk is genuinely obvious, two things follow. There is no duty to warn of it, subject to exceptions including where the injured person asked for advice about the risk: s 15(1) and (2). And if voluntary assumption of risk is raised, awareness is presumed unless disproved: s 14(1). Neither makes an obvious risk a bar to a claim. They remove the warning duty and shift a burden.
When you were partly at fault
Carelessness of your own does not end a claim, but it can cut it down. Contributory negligence is judged by the same principles as breach, against a reasonable person in the injured person’s position, on what that person knew or ought reasonably to have known at the time, so hindsight is excluded: s 23. The reduction has no ceiling: a court may reduce damages by 100 per cent where that is just and equitable, defeating the claim: s 24. A respondent claiming contributory negligence must state the degree as a percentage in its response: s 20(1).
Councils, footpaths and parks
Where the occupier is a local government, the Crown or a public authority constituted under an Act, further provisions apply: s 34. A court deciding whether such an authority has a duty or breached one must treat its functions as limited by the resources reasonably available, its general allocation of resources as beyond challenge, its functions as judged across the broad range of its activities, and its compliance with general procedures as evidence: s 35. Section 36, which is headed as dealing with proceedings based on breach of statutory duty, applies by its own terms to a proceeding based on an alleged wrongful exercise of, or failure to exercise, a function, and sets a further threshold: the act or omission is not a wrongful exercise or failure unless it was so unreasonable that no authority with those functions could properly consider it a reasonable exercise of them.
Roads attract more. A road authority is not liable for failing to repair a road, keep it in repair, or inspect it to decide whether repair is needed: s 37(1). That protection is lost if the authority had actual knowledge of the particular risk that materialised: s 37(2). “Road” takes its meaning from schedule 4 of the Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act 1995 (Qld), which reaches an area open to or used by the public and developed for, or having as one of its uses, the driving or riding of motor vehicles, or dedicated to public use as a road, and gives a shopping centre car park as an example. A footpath is defined separately there, as an area open to the public designated for, or having as one of its main uses, use by pedestrians.
Whether a given strip of pavement falls inside that definition is a question about the pavement, not a rule that answers itself. The effect of s 37(2), though, is not in doubt: a defect a council had already been told about stands differently from one it never had to go looking for.
What matters in the first days
These claims are decided on records held by the other side, so the early steps are about preserving evidence.
- Report it to the centre, the store or the council, and ask for the incident report number. A respondent must give copies of reports and other documentary material about the incident in its possession that are directly relevant to a matter in issue, within 1 month of a complying part 1 notice: s 27. Privilege is preserved, but investigative, medical and rehabilitation reports must be handed over even so: s 30.
- Photograph the hazard before it is cleaned or repaired, with something in frame for scale, and note the time. Take witness names and numbers, because centres do not always keep them.
- See a doctor and describe how the injury happened. That note is often the earliest independent account.
Notice, the response and the clock
The Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) governs the pre-court steps, and applies to all personal injury from an incident other than injury dealt with under the motor accident scheme or, to the stated extent, the workers’ compensation scheme: s 6. Part 1 of the notice of claim is due by the earlier of two dates: 9 months after the incident or, where symptoms were not immediately apparent, after they first appeared; and 1 month after first instructing a law practice, where the prospective defendant is identified: s 9(3). Missing it is not the end. The obligation continues, and a reasonable excuse for the delay must be given: s 9(5). Against the State, or an entity with the privileges and immunities of the State, the notice works only if it goes to the Crown solicitor and identifies the department or entity the claimant considers responsible: s 9(8).
Once a complying part 1 notice is given, the respondent has 6 months to investigate the incident, say in writing whether liability is admitted or denied, state the percentage of any contributory negligence claimed, make a fair and reasonable estimate of damages, and make a written offer: s 20(1). A compulsory conference must be held before a proceeding is started, unless the parties dispense with it by agreement for good reason or the court dispenses with it on application: s 36.
A separate limitation period runs alongside. An action for negligence, trespass, nuisance or breach of duty that includes damages for personal injury must not be brought more than 3 years after the cause of action arose: Limitation of Actions Act 1974 (Qld) s 11. Limited extensions exist: a person under a disability when the right of action accrued has 3 years from ceasing to be under it (s 29), and a court may extend by 1 year where a material fact of a decisive character was outside the applicant’s means of knowledge until the final year (s 31). If a complying part 1 notice was given before the period ended, a proceeding may still be started afterwards, but only within 6 months of the notice or of leave being granted, or a longer period the court allows: s 59.
Published 26 August 2026.
Where this leaves you
These claims turn on two measurable things: the precaution a reasonable occupier would have taken, and whether failing to take it caused the harm. Most of what answers them sits in someone else’s records, and the notice process is what brings those records out. The notice deadlines are short, they are not the limitation period, and they do not all start on the day of the incident.
Related reading
- Slip and fall accidents: causes, injuries and liability
- The personal injury claim process in Queensland
- How Fraser Lawyers helps with public liability claims
- Contact Fraser Lawyers
Need advice? Time limits and key decisions in injury claims can be strict and easy to miss. If this is your situation, contact Fraser Lawyers to understand your rights and where you stand, with no obligation. |
This article is general information only and is not legal advice. Queensland law and the figures referred to can change, and every situation turns on its own facts. Contact Fraser Lawyers for advice specific to your circumstances.
If you would like to discuss your matter, you can book a consultation or call (07) 5554 6116.
