Council ordered to pay $675k to cyclist whose eye was impaled on metal stake

Brisbane City Council has been ordered to pay $675,000 to a cyclist whose eye was impaled on a metal stake after he crashed into a plastic barricade left overnight by workers almost 17 years ago.

Victor Dennison, then in his 60s, had set off on an early morning ride on Zillmere Road in Aspley, in the city’s north, on December 18, 2009, when he veered to avoid plastic mesh left to protect curing concrete on the path on which he was riding.

But the makeshift fence was also connected to a metal fence on a bordering property, and when Dennison hit the mesh, he came off his bike, impaling his eye on an uncapped metal stake that was supporting the mesh.

He suffered a traumatic brain injury and destroyed his eye.

In May, a Supreme Court judge found that despite the lack of warnings – council workers had left four orange cones, but they were apparently stolen overnight – the council was not liable, and denied Dennison a payout.

That decision was overturned on Tuesday, with the Court of Appeal ruling the council should have done more to alert riders of the changed conditions.

The mesh was orange but not reflective, nor were the metal poles used to support it.

No lights or signs were left up to warn riders, and the council’s team leader for the works thought light cast by a nearby advertisement would make up for the fact the closest street light was not working at the time.

Justice Shane Doyle disagreed with the ruling by the primary judge, Justice Lincoln Crowley, that the council’s actions were reasonable.

“The risk of cyclists colliding with the barricade was plainly foreseeable, and the potential for significant personal injury was also reasonably foreseeable,” Doyle said.

Under the Civil Liability Act, the council’s actions must be found “so unreasonable that no public or other authority having the functions of the authority in question could properly consider the act or omission to be a reasonable exercise of its functions”, the court ruled.

Crowley had found the council was negligent, but not to the degree required for a payment to be made.

Doyle, and the rest of the three-person appeals court, disagreed.

“In my view, it is difficult to accept that a public authority could reasonably consider that it was a proper exercise of its functions or powers here (if it was not providing hazard lighting or other precaution), not to provide at least reflective signs providing advance warning of the barricade and the need to divert to another safely identified passage,” Doyle said.

The court ordered council to pay Dennison, who is now in his 80s, suffering from dementia and was represented by his wife, Juthika Dennison, $675,926.77 plus interest, as well as their court costs.

The council has been contacted for comment.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.