Woman to pay Wagga council legal costs over airport door injury District Court lawsuit

The woman had claimed more than $263,000 in compensation after she was was injured by an automatic door at the airport in September 2017.

District Court Judge Margaret Sidis ruled last month that the woman's legal team had "not fulfilled the onus of establishing that the [Wagga council] was in breach of its duty of care to her in a manner that was causative of her injury".

On Tuesday, Judge Sidis handed down a decision on costs after considering submissions from the woman and Wagga council but did not specify what the total cost would be.

Wagga council will be able to claim its legal costs during the hearings, which ended in February, and any reasonable costs incurred afterwards.

The costs decision revealed the council had twice offered to settle the case out-of-court but those offers were rejected.

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The woman had submitted that she should not pay costs based on the evidence submitted during the court case around a lack of warning signs at the door and a failure to replace some of the safety sensors.

"I did not accept that I should deny the defendant its right to costs because I found against it on the issues of contributory negligence and obvious risk," Judge Sidis stated.

"They were defences that were legitimately available to the defendant."

The woman was aged 44 at the time of the incident and had flown to Wagga with her mother and her aunt to attend a family funeral.

She told the court the door closing on her arm caused neck, back and sciatic pain as well as tendonitis in her left shoulder and had lost the opportunity to work at one of her jobs.

Judge Sidis found that the woman's pre-existing spinal condition was made worse by the airport incident but did not find that the council's failure to replace one of two sets of safety sensors on the door had caused the incident.

Her Honour's decision also found that Wagga airport staff gave "unsatisfactory" evidence for why they had failed to replace one set sensors that were designed to prevent the door closing on a person.

The woman's submission on costs had complained that documents about the case had been "withheld" by the council during proceedings, but Justice Sidis stated that the court had been given an explanation for the late procurement.

"The plaintiff correctly recognised that her claim failed because, although a defect was identified, it was not established that the defect caused her injury," Justice Sidis stated in her costs decision.

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