A slip, trip, or fall in a public place can happen in a second and leave you dealing with the consequences for months or years. A wet supermarket floor with no warning sign. An uneven council footpath that catches your foot. A restaurant spill left unattended during a busy service. A poorly lit stairwell in a shopping centre. If you have been injured in a public place or on someone else’s premises due to conditions that should have been made safe, you may have a right to compensation under NSW public liability law. This guide explains everything you need to know.
A public liability claim is a compensation claim made against a person, business, or authority that owed you a duty of care and failed to take reasonable precautions to prevent your injury. In NSW, public liability claims are governed by the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), which defines the legal obligations that property owners, business operators, councils, and other occupiers have toward people who enter their premises or use their facilities.
These claims are fundamentally different from workers compensation (which covers workplace injuries) and CTP claims (which cover motor vehicle accidents). Public liability covers the broad range of injury scenarios that occur in everyday public life.
Public liability claims can be made against a wide range of parties in NSW, including:
The occupier or property owner must have owed you a legal duty of care at the time of your injury. This is straightforward in almost all public liability situations: a supermarket owes a duty of care to every customer who enters; a council owes a duty to every pedestrian using its footpaths; a gym owes a duty to every member using its facilities. The existence of a duty is rarely contested — it is taken as given in most public and commercial settings.
The critical issue in most public liability claims is whether the duty of care was breached — that is, whether the occupier or property owner failed to take reasonable steps to prevent a foreseeable injury. The standard is objective: what would a reasonable person in the defendant’s position have done? A supermarket that leaves a liquid spill on a busy aisle for 45 minutes without cleaning it or placing warning signs has breached its duty. A council that receives multiple reports of a cracked footpath and fails to repair it for six months has breached its duty. Reasonableness — and the evidence of what was or was not done — is at the centre of most public liability disputes.
You must also establish that the breach of duty actually caused your injury, and that you have suffered quantifiable loss as a result. This involves establishing the causal chain from the defendant’s failure, to the hazard that caused your fall, to the injuries you sustained, to the financial and personal losses that followed. Medical evidence, photographs, and financial records all support this element of the claim.
Supermarket slip and fall claims are among the most common in NSW. Causes include liquid spills not promptly cleaned, freshly mopped floors without wet floor signage, produce items left on the floor, refrigerator condensation or leaks creating wet patches, and poor lighting in storage or stock areas. Supermarkets are required to implement regular inspection and cleaning protocols. If the hazard existed for a period long enough that a reasonable system should have identified and addressed it, the supermarket may be liable.
A key issue in supermarket claims is establishing when the hazard appeared and how long it was present before the accident. CCTV footage is critical evidence here, and must be preserved immediately.
Shopping centre operators are responsible for the safety of all common areas — walkways, food courts, toilets, car parks, lifts, and entry and exit points. Injuries from wet floors (particularly near automatic doors during rain), escalator malfunctions, inadequate lighting, broken fixtures, and poorly maintained surfaces can all give rise to public liability claims against the centre operator.
Local councils have a duty to maintain footpaths, parks, playgrounds, and public areas in a reasonably safe condition. However, claims against councils involve specific legal complexities. The Civil Liability Act 2002 provides significant protections to public authorities in NSW. To succeed against a council, you generally need to establish that the council had actual knowledge of the specific defect, and failed to repair it within a reasonable time. The mere existence of a hazard is not enough — you need to show the council knew or ought to have known about it. Specialist legal advice is essential for council claims.
Food and beverage businesses have a clear duty to keep their premises safe during trade. Wet floors from spills during service, poor lighting in dining or access areas, broken or unstable furniture, and unmarked level changes between surfaces are common causes of injury. Busy service environments do not excuse operators from meeting their duty of care — if anything, busy venues are expected to have more robust hazard management in place.
Gyms owe a duty to members and visitors to maintain equipment in safe working order, to keep wet areas free of slip hazards, and to ensure all areas of the facility are reasonably safe. A faulty resistance machine, a wet change room floor without non-slip matting, a poorly secured weight rack, or an inadequate safety inspection schedule can all give rise to a successful claim. Signing a gym membership agreement does not waive all legal rights under the Civil Liability Act 2002.
The strength of a public liability claim depends heavily on evidence collected at or near the time of the accident. Before leaving the scene, or as soon as you are able:
CCTV footage is one of the most powerful forms of evidence in a public liability claim. Most commercial premises retain footage for only 14 to 30 days before automatic overwriting. Your lawyer must write to the property owner or operator immediately after the accident, putting them on formal notice to preserve all CCTV footage of the relevant area for the relevant time. If footage is subsequently destroyed after a preservation notice has been sent, a court can draw adverse inferences against the defendant.
Successful public liability claims in NSW can result in compensation covering:
Under the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), non-economic loss (pain and suffering) compensation is only available if your injury results in a “significant” degree of permanent impairment — assessed as 15% or more of a most extreme case. For less serious injuries, you can still recover economic losses including medical expenses and lost income, but the pain and suffering component is not available. For many claimants, medical and economic losses alone still represent very significant compensation.
The standard limitation period for a public liability claim in NSW is three years from the date of the accident — or from the date of discoverability, if the injury or its cause was not immediately apparent. Missing this deadline means losing the right to claim, regardless of how serious your injury is or how clearly someone was at fault.
The three-year period sounds substantial, but evidence disappears quickly, and CCTV footage is typically gone within a month. The right time to seek legal advice is immediately after the accident.