The Issue of This Case Is, Is City Hotel Negligent?

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Mr. Lee claims that the tennis court should have been enclosed. If the City Hotel close the tennis court, a mount of income will decrease. The burden of taking precautions to avoid the risk of harm is too expensive. In a word, the City Hotel do not breach of duty of care.

The third principle in this case is causation. Causation is the damage to a person who the duty of care was owed to must have caused or contributed to by the breach of duty of care. From the section 5D of the Civil Liability Act 2002(NSW) including the negligence was a necessary condition of the occurrence of the harm, named factual causation. The most important element of the causation is “but for “test. This test is would the harm have occurred but for (without) the defendant’s conduct? If No, causation is established. If yes, causation is not established. Connecting to this case, would Mr. Lee have suffered that injuries without the ball leaving the City Hotel court? The answer is NO. Therefore causation is proven.

The fourth principle is remoteness which means the connection between the act and the damage. The damage caused must not be too remote be called negligence. The section 5D of the Civil Liability Act 2002(NSW) include that it is appropriate for the scope of the negligent person’s liability to extend to the harm so caused. Foreseeability test is a part of the remoteness. The content of this test is whether a reasonable person could foresee the possibility of the specific damage as a consequence of their carelessness? If no (damage too remote), defendant is not liable. If yes (damage not too remote) Defendant is liable. In this case, there are four question to prove it was not reasonably foreseeable. Is reasonable foreseeable to expect a tennis ball to cause so much damage? Could City Hotel foresee that glasses would be broken? Could City Hotel foresee facial injuries from broken glasses? The answer of these three question is no, defendant is not liable. And was it a freak accident? If so then it was NOT reasonably foreseeable

In the conclusion of this case, the City Hotel has the duty of care for Mr. Lee but do not breach the duty of care. The City Hotel has the causation, and the remoteness do not exist. All elements proven the City Hotel is not negligent.