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Welsh v Graham and another: District Court 5 pages

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Welsh v Graham and another: District Court 5 pages

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Negligence tree lopping: District Court 9 pages

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Negligence tree lopping: District Court 9 pages

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Ryan v Dearden 2023: Supreme Court of Appeal 11 pages

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Ryan v Dearden 2023: Supreme Court of Appeal 11 pages

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Negligence QCA

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Civil Claims: What to do in Court (Tips and Information)

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Burden and standard of proof in civil law

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Burden and standard of proof in civil law

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QCE Legal Studies: Burden and Standard of Proof in Civil Law

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Civil and criminal law explained in under 2 mins

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Jury Awards $800,000 to a Girl Burned by a Chicken McNugget

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The 7-year-old deserved to be compensated by McDonald’s for a second-degree burn caused by a wayward piece from a Happy Meal when she was 4, a Florida jury decided this week.

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Woman awarded $1.1 million after eating hot chips seasoned with caustic soda

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Karis Pringle went to Chicken Treat with her nine-year-old son for a meal, but ended up being airlifted to hospital with internal burns because the chips had been seasoned with caustic soda.

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Governance

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Any teacher will tell you that excursions provide benefits that promote student learning while also allowing different styles of learning through experiences. In light of COVID-19, taking students on safe but also fun excursions may seem daunting but applying controlled approaches can mitigate risks, ensuring that students can experience learning outside the classroom. This article will discuss why excursions are beneficial for student learning, what makes a good excursion and tips for planning excursions in a COVID-19 changed world.

What Are the Benefits of Excursions?

There are many benefits to taking students on excursions. Teach Starter outlines the main student benefits of excursions as encouraging students to:

experience natural stimuli

broaden their worldviews

learn from specialist educators

experience hands-on learning

have their curiosity stimulated.

School Activities Australia suggests similar benefits, but adds on one extra that may be even more relevant following the impacts of COVID-19:

social skills - giving children an opportunity to interact with new people and in a new environment.

Studies suggest that there may be an academic benefit to teaching outside the classroom. Ofsted (a UK government body) conducted research into taking students on excursions and teachers found that excursions were integral to learning and raised teaching standards. Additionally, Educating Adventures and Nature Play Queensland, both organisations that work with children on outdoor excursions and natural learning, claim that students who participate in learning outside the classroom achieve higher test results.

In interviews with teachers who have experience in planning and executing excursions for young students, we discussed the idea that isolations and lockdowns have severely impacted student confidence and social situations. This theory is further supported by a study from Headspace in August 2020 where 70 per cent of participants indicated that COVID-19 had had a negative impact on their relationships with friends, 65 per cent reported a negative impact on their study situation and qualitative data revealed that young people felt that COVID-19 had impacted their confidence in achieving their goals. Combatting these newly-identified issues should be a priority in schools, and combining learning with positive, practical, out-of-class experiences could be an inclusive and effective strategy.

Excursions can take many forms and address several learning areas at once. The Australian Directory of School Activities, Excursions and Accommodation published an article outlining the Best School Excursions for 2022. This included potential excursion locations in each state and territory such as:

museums

zoos

gravity discovery centres

climbing centres

walks/tours

theme parks.

We interviewed a number of Australian teachers, and found these common themes necessary to create a ‘good’ excursion. It must:

promote key learning outcomes and the outcomes must be identifiable

have a clear purpose

identify with the school ethos

combine theory taught in the classroom, followed by a practical component

allow for new.

Furthermore, although the above factors combined make a good excursion, to make an excursion great, it should allow for students to take calculated risks in unfamiliar places – after all, this is how true learning takes place. This includes encouraging students to engage in conversations with new people, providing students with new responsibilities, encouraging them to apply what they have learnt in the classroom in ‘real world’ situation and engaging in activities that enhance leadership skills and promoting teamwork with different groups of classmates.

The Student Travel Planning Guide’s tips for organising trips includes the idea to ask students to research the location prior to the excursion and get them to participate in a quiz or create posters to encourage many types of learning on the one topic.

The Australian Directory of School Activities, Excursions and Accommodation’s Top Tips for Successful School Excursions, Camps and Incursions outlines the following as essentials for creating empowering and enlightening excursions:

giving context to the trip

preparing students with an outline

giving students ownership to ‘drive’ the excursion

keeping students busy and engaged

bringing learnings from the excursion back into the classroom.

One teacher who we interviewed outlined an example of these ideas in practice. The example was an excursion to local markets where students would interview stall holders and complete observations. Following their investigation, students were allowed to participate in the markets and purchase goods. This activity encouraged student ownership, allowed the students to stay focused, promoted new social interactions and combined theory with a practical learning element. The excursion would arguably have been even better if there had been prior learning about entrepreneurship and then follow up learning reflecting on the day of the excursion.

Another example can be taken from outdoor education. Students can only learn the basics and theory of abseiling in a classroom. They must go abseiling to learn how to do it and then they need to learn how to apply the skills learnt in a variety of abseiling situations. Teachers will tell you that this is true learning - when a student does not just ‘regurgitate’ what they have learned in a classroom environment, but they have applied it effectively in new and different situations.

Conducting Excursions in a COVID World

As life returns to the new normal and venues open, schools should follow guidelines to ensure that they are COVID-safe. Our previous School Governance article ‘After’ COVID-19: Safe Excursions for Schools, outlines COVID-19’s impact on excursions, why risk management is important and provides advice for when conducting an excursion.

On top of following COVID-safe plans, teachers planning excursions should have pre-excursion checklists including precautions for students with high-risk medical conditions, supervision requirements, excursion communication plans and others. Each excursion should also have its own unique risk assessment to ensure that appropriate controls have been put in place prior to the excursion commencing.

Conclusion

Excursions should be designed to bring teaching and learning to life. Regardless of COVID, this premise has not changed.

In the classroom students get theory and some practical applications in subjects such as information technology, science, the manual arts and catering.  Well-planned and carefully-executed excursions allow students to see their learning in real life situations and encourages them to put their theory and classroom lessons into practice. It gives the learning a sense of purpose and validity because the students can apply it in a variety of new situations.

Now that we are once again venturing outside of our own backyards, schools need to re-engage with their students in excursions that enhance their total learning experience, while still keeping the students safe and engaged in quality learning.

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What Makes a Good (and Great) Excursion?

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This article will discuss why excursions are beneficial for student learning, what makes a good excursion and tips for planning excursions in a COVID-19 changed world.

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Negligence

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Negligence

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Article

School Complaints On Social Media - Have You Been Able To Manage Complaints During The Pandemic?

Schools get complaints. It is fact of life. However, poorly handled complaints will result in a loss of control of key conversations within a school and with this loss of control comes an increase in possible reputational damage. Ultimately, effective complaints handling is all about taking control of the management of your school’s reputation.

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School Governance is the go-to resource for school leaders looking to understand how to meet their legal and regulatory obligations.

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Blog

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Welcome to School Legals, a site which focuses on Legal Studies and Managing Legal Risks in Schools. I
created this site to diarise legal news and cases which I think are interesting and relevant to both Legal Studies students and to school principals, teachers, administrators and policy makers.

With the Legal Studies blogs, I bring a contemporary focus to the subject by linking students and teachers to recent, informative and authoritative articles, web sites, videos and news items related to the Legal Studies curriculum areas.

The law is constantly evolving and changing and it is hard enough for lawyers to keep up let alone teachers and their students. I hope that this archive of curated resources will help you keep pace with those changes and will complement your existing texts and resources. I have posted blogs covering Human Rights, Property Law, International Law, Civil Obligations and the Legal System, Criminal Law, Family Law, Technology and the Law and Indigenous Australians and the Law.

Managing Legal Risks in schools is an increasingly demanding field. A senior Australian academic recently wrote about the increasing litigation in all areas of society and noted that education is no exception. Students and their parents are aware of their rights and are more willing to hold professionals accountable for their actions. This means that schools and educators are increasingly dealing with litigation as parents and students seek to recover compensation.

Parents and students of course expect schools and school staff to fulfil their duty of care but this is compounded by the fact that this duty of care may not just be expected during school hours and on school grounds. Furthermore, schools are challenged by issues such as inclusivity (for example, managing LGBT students), the increasing use of digital technology by students, bullying and discrimination.

I hope that this blog will increase awareness of schools' legal responsibilities to parents and students and start some conversations amongst teachers and administrators about the various legal issues and risks prevalent today in schools.
Disclaimer
This blog is by no way intended to provide you with legal advice about managing particular issues at your school. It is simply intended for the interest of readers and no client/ lawyer relationship is intended to be created between the readers and me or any author of the blog's content. Should you have specific circumstances which require legal advice, then you must retain a lawyer to handle your matter.
About
I am a Senior Tutor at TAFE Queensland and a Sessional Educator at QUT College. I became a teacher a few years ago having worked as a solicitor for nearly 20 years in a Commercial Law Firm and in private practice. I am admitted to practice law in Queensland and continue to practise as a volunteer at our local Community Legal Service.

I hope you enjoy School Legals and find the posts helpful.
Rosalind Lemmey

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Welcome to School Legals, a site which focuses on Legal Studies and Managing Legal Risks in Schools. I created this site to diarise legal news and cases which I think are interesting and relevant to both Legal Studies students and to school principals, teachers, administrators and policy makers.

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Education lawyer specialising in all aspects of school law including child protection, duty of care, cyber bullying.

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IAF3 Year 11  Investigation Argumentative Essay Negligence SOTE

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1. Donoghue v. Stevenson: The History of Law Reporting

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How a dead snail made history (or did it?). The story of Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562

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INXS Lead guitarist sues rental boat operator

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INXS Lead guitarist sues rental boat operator

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Guardian

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The lead guitarist of INXS stared down in horror at the bloody stump of his left ring finger after it was hacked off by a boat's anchoring equipment in 2015 and screamed: "It's taken my finger off!"

A shocked Tim Farriss - who feared he was about to faint - then gathered the finger in the palm of his hand and held it against his chest.

The Perth-born musician is now suing the Sydney rental boat's operators - John William Axford and Jill Mary Axford of Church Point Charter - for damages.

He claims they're responsible for the injury that ended his career.

"I will NEVER forget what I saw next as long as I live," Farriss, 61, said in his evidentiary statement for the NSW supreme court civil case.

"My hand was covered in rust, blood and mud, but I could see one of my fingers had been severed and the others were disfigured, badly lacerated and bleeding."

Farriss's legal team argues there was a foreseeable and not insignificant risk of injury to someone handling the anchoring equipment on the Omega Clipper 34 boat.

The guitarist hired the boat for a leisure cruise on Pittwater Bay over the Australia Day weekend in 2015.

The statement of claim argues the defendants failed to properly instruct Farriss how to use the equipment and didn't maintain a fully functioning anchor system.

The Axfords and Church Point Charter insist Farriss was given proper instructions but failed to take due care and failed to operate the anchor appropriately.

"If [Farriss] suffered injury, loss or damage [which is not admitted], the defendants say such loss and damage was caused or contributed to by the first plaintiff's own fault and negligence," the defence states.

The musician argues that on 24 January 2015 he and his wife, Beth, sailed into Akuna Bay but struggled to set anchor because the chain was "prone to 'kinking'".

They telephoned a Church Point Charter employee for assistance after the anchor motor stopped operating and then reset the circuit breaker.

The motor restarted but it didn't halt the kinking of the chain.

Farriss says he attempted to realign the chain only for it to start spinning out of control.

He suffered a severed left ring finger and serious injuries to his index and middle finger. There was a minor injury to his pinky finger.

He needed 11 hours of surgery to reattach the severed finger, which is no longer functional.

Farriss is seeking special damages - which aren't quantified - for loss of earnings and future loss of earnings, as well as out-of-pocket expenses.

Montana Productions - which is owned by Farriss and his wife and controls his publishing rights and royalty income - is also seeking damages.

"I find my reattached ring finger to be an annoyance and unsightly. I have considered having it amputated," Farriss said.

"I am no longer able to play guitar other than a few beginner-level chords."

The plaintiffs on Tuesday sought to amend their statement of claim in the supreme court but the defence opposed the move.

Associate Justice Joanne Harrison reserved her judgment with directions to be issued on Friday.

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INXS lead guitarist sues rental boat operator over finger severed on board

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The lead guitarist of INXS stared down in horror at the bloody stump of his left ring finger after it was hacked off by a boat's anchoring equipment in 2015 and screamed: "It's taken my finger off!"

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The Monthly

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A court ruling that the environment minister owes children a duty of care to prevent climate harm has far-reaching implications

One Sunday in August, 93 years ago, May Donoghue was enjoying an ice-cream float at a cafe in Paisley, Scotland. But when her companion poured more ginger beer into the float, a decomposed snail fell from the bottle. Donoghue fell ill. That incident would become immortalised in legal history – Donoghue sued the ginger beer manufacturer, David Stevenson, and the law of negligence was born. In an iconic judgement from Britain’s House of Lords, Brisbane-born judge Lord James Atkin declared: “The rule that you are to love your neighbour becomes in law, you must not injure your neighbour.”

In late May this year, as Melbourne was heading into another lockdown, Donoghue v. Stevenson provided the backdrop to the most significant climate case yet decided in Australia. From a courtroom on William Street, grey-haired Federal Court justice Mordecai “Mordy” Bromberg delivered a brief summary of his 161-page, 70,000-word decision in Sharma v. Minister for the Environment. His ruling sought to answer an increasingly pressing question: what relevance does the Donoghue snail have in the climate change era?

With his glasses balanced on the tip of his nose, Bromberg noted the unchallenged climate science that the plaintiffs, eight Australian teenagers and their litigation guardian, Sister Brigid Arthur, had put before him. They had done so in an attempt to prevent the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, from approving an extension of the Vickery coalmine, in north-west New South Wales between Gunnedah and Narrabri. An expanded Vickery mine would ultimately put an additional 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Speaking to the handful of masked lawyers and barristers in front of him, and to the world via a livestream, Bromberg made a number of uncontroversial observations about the law of negligence. He paused momentarily, took a breath, and then in one sentence fundamentally reshaped Australia’s climate law paradigm. “Having weighed and balanced those considerations, the court is satisfied that a duty of care should be recognised,” Bromberg said solemnly.

The judge held that the environment minister has a duty of care to Australia’s children not to exacerbate the impact of the climate crisis – something Bromberg said Ley would have to consider when assessing the mine extension. “That conclusion is confirmed when re-examined through the lens of the neighbourhood principle,” Bromberg observed in his written judgement. The snail lives on.

“It was immediately obvious that this was groundbreaking,” says Dr Chris McGrath, a Brisbane barrister who has masterminded much litigation resisting new coalmines over the past decade (but was not involved in Sharma). “This is Mabo for the climate. I was shocked and excited by it.”

He is not the only one. “There is no doubt that the decision made in the Sharma case is a watershed moment in climate change litigation,” says Elaine Johnson, a climate litigator with the Environmental Defenders Office. “This is a case that was brought in the right place, at the right time, by the right plaintiffs.” Professor Jacqueline Peel, an eminent climate law expert at Melbourne Law School, adds that Sharma “opens up a new pathway for challenging government decisions that could contribute to greenhouse gas pollution”.

The ingenuity at the heart of Sharma is that, for all its novelty, it proceeds from firmly established legal principle. “There are ordinary processes by which courts advance the common law to protect vulnerable people,” says the plaintiffs’ lawyer, David Barnden. “That’s precisely what happened here.” (Not that the case’s orthodoxy was recognised by conservative commentators – one headline in The Australian screeched: “‘Duty of care’ coal ruling undermines democracy”.)

Since Atkin and his fellow judges established the neighbour principle, the law of negligence has pervaded almost every aspect of our lives. If you are injured at work, on the road or at a shopping centre, legal remedies are typically found in the law of negligence – more commonly home to no-win, no-fee personal injury lawyers than public interest–minded environmentalists.

But for the past two and a half decades, Australia’s small band of environmental lawyers have explored every conceivable area of law, seeking ways to prevent climate harm and encourage climate action. They started in planning law, attempting to block new mines and coal-fired power stations, before branching out to corporate law, human rights law and now negligence.

Facing hostile governments, many found that success in court was short-lived. “Whenever you sue a government, even if you win, they can get special legislation passed to nullify the outcome,” McGrath says. “I had one case where we won at 10am in the Court of Appeal, and by 2pm the state government had announced it was going to change the legislation.”

Which makes Sharma all the more significant. By finding that the minister owes Australia’s children a duty of care to prevent climate harm, an obligation emanating from the common law, Bromberg gave the federal government little room to move. Even if Ley amends the environmental legislation governing her approval powers, she still owes the children a duty of care. Nor can the federal government simply rewrite the law of negligence – it lacks the constitutional authority.

The Morrison government’s only legislative option would be to pass a law specifically immunising itself from lawsuits for climate harm. “They would have to be saying there is no duty of care to protect future generations,” says McGrath. “I don’t think that’s an attractive thing to try and legislate their way out of.”

Instead, the minister will almost certainly appeal. The case will make its way to a full bench of the Federal Court, probably later this year. Whoever loses the appeal will then head to the High Court in Canberra.

Bromberg’s judgement is meticulous, full of climate science and rigorous analysis of the evolution of negligence. The judge’s careful factual findings, McGrath suggests, provide a “tremendous basis to defend the appeal”. In one eye-catching paragraph, the judge does not pull his punches:

It is difficult to characterise in a single phrase the devastation that the plausible evidence presented in this proceeding forecasts for the Children. As Australian adults know their country, Australia will be lost and the World as we know it gone as well. The physical environment will be harsher, far more extreme and devastatingly brutal when angry. As for the human experience – quality of life, opportunities to partake in nature’s treasures, the capacity to grow and prosper – all will be greatly diminished. Lives will be cut short. Trauma will be far more common and good health harder to hold and maintain. None of this will be the fault of nature itself. It will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest intergenerational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next.

An appeal is not the only issue outstanding in Sharma. Some newspapers initially described the verdict as a loss for the teenage plaintiffs, because Bromberg refused to issue an injunction to stop the coalmine extension. Mine owners Whitehaven even claimed victory in a statement to the stock exchange: “Our consistent position has been that this legal claim was without merit.”

But a close reading of Bromberg’s reasons shows that on the question of an injunction, he reached the position of “not yet” rather than “not ever”. The minister is due to determine Whitehaven’s extension application by mid July; if Ley approves it, despite Sharma, Bromberg has left open the possibility that he might at that point injunct the minister. “If there is a view that possible approval and potentially any conditions that travel with that approval do breach the duty of care that has been outlined, then we might be back in court,” Barnden says.

If Sharma holds on appeal, it will be the basis for a new wave of climate litigation. “We are investigating a number of claims,” says Barnden, although he is coy when pressed on specifics. Johnson, who is currently acting for bushfire survivors in a case against the NSW environmental regulator, says that she has “a team of lawyers busily analysing this decision from every angle”. She adds: “This gives us hope that the tide is turning. There’ll be a lot more to come.”

Last year, McGrath published a paper in the Environmental and Planning Law Journal arguing that customary landowners in Papua New Guinea had reasonable grounds to sue the AGL subsidiary that operates the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station, the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. “There is currently a lot of unrealised liability for climate change,” the barrister says. “We have a situation where companies and governments know the harm being caused, and they are choosing to do it anyway. The liability is staring us in the face.” Such arguments have been supercharged by Sharma.

Watching all of this unfold has been the plaintiff’s litigation guardian, Sister Arthur of the Brigidine Order. Because the plaintiffs are not yet adults, they could not bring the case in their own capacity, so Arthur stepped in. “It’s pretty exciting really,” she says. “It’s made an impact globally.”

Arthur, 86, has lost count of how many court cases she has served in since co-founding the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project in 2001 (“I honestly don’t know how many”). While most of her cases are immigration-related, Arthur was pleased to be involved in Sharma. “I feel pretty strongly about what is happening to our planet. It is systematically dying due to a lack of action from our governments.”

Being involved in such a speculative case is not without risks. It is possible that Arthur could be ordered to pay the federal government’s considerable legal costs, particularly if the teenage plaintiffs lose on appeal. The nun is unfazed. “I have very little money that belongs to me,” she says. “They could take that, I guess.”

In the years that followed Donoghue, a rumour emerged that there was never actually a snail in the bottle in that Paisley cafe. After the House of Lords decided the legal point, the dispute was sent back to a lower court to be tried – but the ginger beer brewer died and the case was settled without a finding of fact.

A mythical snail could well be responsible for the modern law of negligence and, almost a century later, the landmark decision in Sharma. But there is no scientific doubt that climate change is real. Absent concerted climate action, harm is inevitable. “We will have to wait and see what happens next in the litigation, but what doesn’t change is the science,” says Johnson. “There is a real risk to these children – that exists in fact, regardless of what happens with the decision in law.” Barnden, facing the prospect of having to defend this revolutionary judgement on appeal, is equally clear-eyed. “This is what it’s all about,” he says. “Trying to avoid the catastrophic harm the scientists can see coming.”

Kieran Pender

Kieran Pender is a writer and lawyer. He is an honorary lecturer at the Australian National University College of Law.

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A court ruling that the environment minister owes children a duty of care to prevent climate harm has far-reaching implications

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Australian court finds government has a duty to protect young people from climate change.

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Australian court finds government has a duty to protect young people from climate change.

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Guardian

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The federal court of Australia has found the environment minister, Sussan Ley, has a duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis in a judgment hailed by lawyers and teenagers who brought the case as a world first.

Eight teenagers and an octogenarian nun had sought an injunction to prevent Ley approving a proposal by Whitehaven Coal to expand the Vickery coalmine in northern New South Wales, arguing the minister had a common law duty of care to protect younger people against future harm from climate change.

Justice Mordecai Bromberg found the minister had a duty of care to not act in a way that would cause future harm to younger people. But he did not grant the injunction as he was not satisfied the minister would breach her duty of care.

David Barnden, a lawyer representing the children, said it was a historic and "amazing decision" with potentially significant consequences.

"The court has found that the minister owes a duty of care to younger children, to vulnerable people, and that duty says that the minister must not act in a way that causes harm - future harm - from climate change to younger people," he said outside court. "It is the first time in the world that such a duty of care has been recognised, especially in a common law country."

He said Bromberg had indicated he would now take submissions before making further declarations about what the minister's duty of care may mean for whether the mine extension could go ahead.

Whitehaven Coal had a different interpretation of the judgment. In a statement to the stock exchange, it did not mention the duty of care finding, and said it welcomed the court dismissing the teenagers' attempt to block Ley from approving the mine extension.

"Our consistent position has been that this legal claim was without merit," it said. "Whitehaven looks forward to receiving the ... approval for the Vickery extension project and will keep the market updated as appropriate."

Speaking for the children, 17-year-old Ava Princi said it was "thrilling and deeply relieving" that the justice had recognised the minister had a duty of care.

"I am thrilled because this is a landmark decision," she said. "My future and the future of all young people depends on Australia stepping away from fossil fuel projects and joining the world in taking decisive climate action."

She said though an injunction was not granted the case was "not over yet". "There will be further submissions on what the duty of care means for the minister's decision and the mine," she said.

A spokesman for Ley said the government was considering the judgment and would have "more to say in due course", but noted it rejected the application for an injunction against the minister to prevent her making a final decision on the mine extension.

The teenagers, led by the 16-year-old Melbourne student Anj Sharma and supported by Sister Brigid Arthur, an 86-year-old nun and former teacher who volunteered to be their litigation guardian, argued Ley would be breaching a common law duty of care if she used her powers under national environment laws to allow Whitehaven Coal to extend the Vickery mine.

The court heard the expansion of the mine could lead to an extra 100m tonnes of CO2 - about 20% of Australia's annual climate footprint - being released into the atmosphere as the extracted coal is shipped overseas and burned to make steel and generate electricity.

In his judgment, Bromberg said the evidence presented to the court showed the potential harm the children could face due to global heating "may fairly be described as catastrophic, particularly should global average surface temperatures rise to and exceed 3C beyond the pre-industrial level".

"Perhaps the most startling of the potential harms demonstrated by the evidence before the court, is that one million of today's Australian children are expected to suffer at least one heat-stress episode serious enough to require acute care in a hospital," he said.

"Many thousands will suffer premature death from heat stress or bushfire smoke. Substantial economic loss and property damage will be experienced. The Great Barrier Reef and most of Australia's eastern eucalypt forests will no longer exist due to repeated, severe bushfires."

Bromberg found that the minister had a common law duty to take reasonable care not to cause the children personal injury when using her powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

He did not grant an injunction to prevent the mine extension because he had "not been satisfied that a reasonable apprehension of breach of the duty of care by the minister has been established".

The case is one of a number of climate-related litigation cases expected before Australian courts and tribunals in the months ahead as lawyers and activists aim to use the law to force change they say is not coming quickly enough from Canberra or state governments.

There have been a growing number of international cases that aim to hold governments to account for not doing more to address global heating.

In the latest on Wednesday, a court in the Hague ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030 compared with 2019 levels after finding the oil giant's sustainability policy was insufficiently "concrete".

The Anglo-Dutch company was told it had a duty of care and that the level of emission reductions of Shell and its suppliers and buyers should be brought into line with the Paris climate agreement. The case had been brought by Friends of the Earth and over 17,000 co-plaintiffs.

The International Energy Agency last week suggested there should be no new coal, oil or gas investments if the world was to keep open the possibility of meet the goals of the Paris agreement and reaching net zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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Australian court finds government has duty to protect young people from climate crisis

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The federal court of Australia has found the environment minister, Sussan Ley, has a duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis in a judgment hailed by lawyers and teenagers who brought the case as a world first.

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ABC news

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A 23-year-old Gold Coast woman diagnosed with terminal cancer says two doctors failed to provide medical care to the standard expected after not taking a biopsy of a lump on her leg. She's warning others to get every lump checked

Ashleigh Simrajh went to see a GP about an unusual lump when she was 20 years old

The GP and the general surgeon she was referred to did not take a biopsy

She now has melanoma that has spread and is no longer treatable

Three years ago, Ashleigh Simrajh went to see a GP about a lump on her thigh.

Ms Simrajh, now 23, said the doctor told her he thought it was a cyst and did not take a biopsy, but referred her to a general surgeon.

When she saw the surgeon, he told her it would cost $2,500 to remove it in the private system as a "cosmetic procedure" or she would face a two-year wait in the public system.

Ashleigh Simrajh was 20 years old when she first noticed the lump.(Supplied )

"Being a 20-year-old girl working at McDonald's, I didn't really have a lot of savings at all," Ms Simrajh said.

"So that kind of really scared me off and I thought I'm not going to do anything about it."

Ms Simrajh said over the next 12 months the lump became more painful and started to bleed when knocked.

"It was really, extremely painful, I couldn't sleep on it, I couldn't wear clothes over the top of it," she said.

A 'race against time'

Ms Simrajh said she booked in to see another specialist at a skin clinic, who took a biopsy within five minutes of the appointment.

"Two days later I got a call saying it was a melanoma," she said.

"It was pretty heartbreaking because I thought I'd done everything I should have done."

Further tests confirmed the cancer had spread into her lungs and lymph nodes and was no longer treatable.

Lawyers acting on behalf of Ms Simrajh and her family have launched legal action against two practitioners, seeking compensation for her pain and suffering.

Shine Lawyers medical law expert Clare Eves said Ms Simrajh's ultimate outcome could have been avoided.

Clare Eves says Ms Simrajh has been let down by the system.(ABC News: Curtis Rodda )

"In the grand scheme of things, there's no real compensation which can really compensate Ashleigh or the family for what they've lost or what they've gone through," Ms Eves said.

"Ashleigh is also deteriorating very quickly so it's now a real race against time to make sure all the evidence is preserved and we get justice for Ashleigh and her family.

"In Queensland melanoma is not that uncommon.

She was concerned, Ashleigh did all the right things, and she was really let down by the system in this particular case."

'They failed her'

Ashleigh's father, Tony Simrajh, said his family would like to see someone held to account.

"I'm sure if that was those doctors' own daughter they would have [performed] every single test and done everything in their power, but they didn't for my beautiful daughter," Mr Simrajh said.

"Ashleigh relied upon these two doctors in particular and they failed her.

"As soon as she found the right doctors it all happened.

"All Ashleigh really wants is somebody to turn around and say, 'You know what? We're human. We buggered up. We're really sorry'."

Ms Simrajh said she hoped her story was a warning for others.

"Any bump, go get checked," she said.

Ms Simrajh and her fiance Jason Hale are now quickly planning a wedding.

Ms Simrajh is hoping to marry her fiance Jason Hale soon.(ABC News: Curtis Rodda )

"Just a small get-together, nothing major, especially with everything going on right now a lot of people can't afford it," she said.

"I love him and I want to be with him forever."

The ABC has not named the doctors involved for legal reasons.

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23yo woman with terminal cancer says two doctors failed to take lump biopsy, warns others against complacency

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A 23-year-old Gold Coast woman diagnosed with terminal cancer says two doctors failed to provide medical care to the standard expected after not taking a biopsy of a lump on her leg. She's warning others to get every lump checked.

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ABC news

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A young Gold Coast woman who waged a high-profile battle against melanoma has died at the age of 23.

Ashleigh Simrajh died 11 days after getting married to Jason Hale

She first noticed a lump on her thigh three years ago

Her family launched legal action against two doctors who failed to detect her cancer

Ashleigh Simrajh launched legal action against two doctors who failed to diagnose her cancer.

Her husband, Jason Hale, whom she married just 11 days ago, paid tribute to his wife on social media.

"You were so brave and strong and I know that you tried your absolute best fighting this battle," he wrote.

"Words cannot describe the pain I'm feeling right now.

"I'm absolutely devastated and my heart is completely shattered."

ABC News reported on Ms Simrajh's case last month.

She first noticed a lump on her thigh three years ago, but by the time it was diagnosed, it was beyond treatment.

The cancer had spread to her lungs and lymph nodes.

Ashleigh Simrajh married Jason Hale on the Gold Coast earlier this month.(ABC News: Curtis Rodda )

Lawyers acting on behalf of Ms Simrajh and her family launched legal action against two practitioners, seeking compensation for pain and suffering.

Ashleigh Simrajh hoped her story would serve as a warning to others.

Mr Hale fondly remembered their wedding day.

"To have called you my wife meant the absolute world to me and I'm so grateful that the day happened.

"For now my precious angel, fly high".

Before she died, Ms Simrajh urged others to get every lump checked to safeguard against melanoma and other forms of cancer.

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Gold Coast woman who took legal action against two doctors dies of melanoma aged 23

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A young Gold Coast woman who waged a high-profile battle against melanoma has died at the age of 23. Ashleigh Simrajh died 11 days after getting married to Jason Hale She first noticed a lump on her thigh three years ago Her family launched legal action against two doctors who failed to detect her cancer Ashleigh Simrajh launched legal action against two doctors who failed to diagnose her cancer.

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Student

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Unit 2 - 3. Negligence and duty of care - student

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Center for Innovation in Legal Education

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Episode 1.1: What is Torts? And what Torts is not.

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YouTube

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YouTube

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9 News Perth

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Negligence In Schools: Lets Cover Our Butts

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Negligence In Schools: Lets Cover Our Butts

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YouTube

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Negligence in schools - Let's cover our butts!

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School Sued Over Alleged Classroom Incident

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School Sued Over Alleged Classroom Incident

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School sued over alleged playground incident

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Parents Accuse School Authority Of Negligence

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Parents Accuse School Authority Of Negligence

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YouTube

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Kaduna River Accident: Parents Accuse School Authority Of Negligence

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YouTube

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Damages, calculation

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Civil Liability Act 2003
Common Law becomes Statute Law

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Extended response, exemplar

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Year 11 and 12 Legal Studies Video 3 Practice Exam Answer and Final Revision Notes Negligence

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Contributory negligence, damages, practice

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Legal Studies Practice Response Contributory Negligence and Calculating Damages

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Uploaded by Scott Francis on 2016-08-23.

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Definitions

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Queensland

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Civil Liability Act 2003 - Queensland Legislation - Queensland Government

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Canada Presentation

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Uploaded by Andrea Pederson on 2015-01-28.

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A brief explanation of the factors that determine negligence.

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Message in a bottle

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The Police - Message In A Bottle (live in Hamburg '80)

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The Police playing in Hamburg, Markthalle, Rockpalast festival (Western Germany - FRG) on 1980.01.11. It was "Around the World" tour with "Reggatta De Blanc" and "Outlandos D'amour" program. The video's status can change, if the policies chosen by the content owners change.

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Police

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Tongue In Cheek Productions bring you their take on The Police's Message In A Bottle involving one very wacky snail and a bottle of ginger beer http://www.tongueincheekproductions.com/