IT was in 2009 that Kathy won her initial case after a six-day hearing in the Sydney District Court in 2009. She alleged Woolworths Limited had been negligent through its process of floor cleaning.
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Twelve months later, Woolworths won a case in the Supreme Court of Appeal, where three judges reversed the District Court decision.
This meant that not only was her compensation lost, but she also owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees – hers and Woolworths.
Kathy and Len came to the Times then, at the suggestion of her legal team, who reasoned that only a public outcry might bring attention to a situation that – to most people – would seem highly unfair.
When the Times made her plight public (MRT December 10 2010) Kathy feared she would be made bankrupt. Her lawyer, Matthew Berenger of LHD Lawyers at the time labelled the matter “disgraceful”, saying “it just doesn’t appear right”.
“The only thing I can see is to put pressure on Woolworths. This is a big corporation coming after a little lady in Taree,” he said.
The appeal court’s decision was considered at the time to have much wider implications, creating a precedent that lawyers believed would have dire consequences for the safety of all shoppers, everywhere.
Mr Berenger said it was an invitation to retailers and shopping centres not to have cleaning systems to protect shoppers from harm from spillages and trip hazards.
Kathy’s legal team called for urgent changes to the laws in NSW to protect shoppers from any further application of the principles found in her case.
Her only option was to make application for Special Leave to the High Court, with no guarantee that the application for hearing would be accepted, let alone a successful outcome.
But it did go ahead, and at 10.15 on Wednesday morning this week, Mr Berenger received the outcome from the High Court, simply by way of an email from Canberra.
The court had found it was not sufficient for an occupier (of a shopping centre) to have no cleaning system in place. (Woolworths had conceded it didn’t).
“The court has clarified an area of negligence by providing a definition of what ‘material contribution’ is,” Mr Berenger said, referring to the lengthy legal argument surrounding the time the greasy chip might have been on the floor.
The finding, he said, retains the original verdict of the District Court – but by now of course the amount involved is considerably higher.
It will enable Kathy and Len to engage carers at any time in the future that it becomes necessary, due to Kathy’s injury.
Kathy lost a leg to cancer when she was 20. Now 60, she has remained fiercely independent throughout her life with the aid of her crutches, but she knows this will not always be the case.
On Wednesday, as she was still trying to comprehend the final outcome of her long battle, she and Len were planning a much more secure future.
