Public Liability incident report

Making a claim against Council for loss or damage arising from an incident.

Please read the information below and if you wish to proceed a public liability incident report form will need to be completed to ensure your report is properly assessed. The form can be found at the bottom of this page.

Please be advised that the circumstances surrounding the incident will be investigated and a Claims Handling Agent will take appropriate action.

All reports will be considered on a “without Prejudice” basis. While Council sympathises with anyone suffering injury or sustaining loss, the acceptance of the completed incident report form by the Council in no way infers negligence on the part of the Council or binds Council to provide compensation.

Notice to Potential Claimants

Once a completed “Public Liability Incident Report Form” is received, an investigation will be carried out by Council, a Claims Handling Agent or it may be referred to a third party. Standard investigation time is a period of four to six weeks, this will however depend upon the circumstances and complexities of your report.

Before Council is obliged to pay compensation for any injury, loss or damage suffered, it must be established that this injury, loss, or damage was caused through negligence on the part of Council, employees or agents of Council.

The proof required to establish negligence can be onerous and quite often you may be better served seeking compensation through your own insurance. Should your insurance company then consider the Council to be negligent, it may seek reimbursement of its costs and any excess that you have paid from Council.

Consideration needs to be given to claims associated with roads and footpaths as the Civil Liability Act 2002 and amendments set out several principles to be employed in determining whether an authority has a “duty of care” or has “breached a duty of care” in Section 45 and 42 as stated below:

A roads authority is not liable in proceedings for harm arising from a failure of the authority to carry out road work, or to consider carrying out road work, unless at the time of the alleged failure the authority had actual knowledge of the particular risk the materialisation of which resulted in the harm
The functions required to be exercised by the authority are limited by the financial and other resources that are reasonably available to the authority for the purpose of exercising those functions.
The function required to be exercised by the authority are to be determined by reference to the broad range of its activities and not merely by reference to the matter to which the proceedings relate.

The same consideration needs to be given for injury, loss or damage being caused from trees or branches falling. While trees may be situated on nature strips or reserves that are Council owned, if there have been no prior reports of problems with the tree(s) in question and they have fallen and caused injury, loss or damage then other factors (e.g. disease, damage by a third party, severe weather etc may need to be taken into consideration to determine if Council can be held liable for the injury or damage.

What you need to complete the form

Your personal details
Details of injury, loss or damage
Exact location of incident location
Photograph of incident location
Photograph of damage to vehicle and/or other property
If person was injured, details including any medical assistance required