Brisbane City Council to pay out $675k 17 years after 'horrific' bike accident

A Brisbane cyclist whose eye was "obliterated" when he fell and impaled it on a temporary council fence has won a $675,000 negligence payout.

Victor George Dennison, who was 64 at the time of the "horrific accident", appealed an earlier decision that found Brisbane City Council (BCC) was not liable for his injuries.

The now 80-year-old was out for a pre-dawn ride on the Zillmere Road footpath in Aspley in December 2009, when he hit the mesh barricade, coming off his bike and falling onto the metal stake holding it up.

The spike penetrated his eye socket, destroying his left eye, fracturing his eye socket, and causing a traumatic brain injury.

The barrier was put up by council workers the day before to protect a freshly-poured section of concrete footpath.

In May this year Supreme Court Justice Lincoln Crowley ruled in favour of BCC, finding the council would have been liable if not for a higher threshold for responsibility under civil liability law.

Successful appeal

Mr Dennison, who has frontal lobe dementia and was represented by his wife, appealed the decision.

He argued that the council had not satisfied its obligations to protect members of the community.

Today, three Court of Appeal justices allowed the appeal and overturned the earlier decision.

The court ruled the council had failed in its duty to protect people even with a higher standard of liability.

[There] is no evidence that any local authority with the functions of the Council could have considered the provision of the barricade as it was with the combination of having no advance or other reflective warning signs, no direction to an alternative path and no local lighting provided, as a proper exercise of the function,

Justice Shane Doyle wrote.

The Court of Appeal ruled in Mr Dennison's favour, ordering council to pay $675,926 plus interest in damages.

The court found several safety failures gave "strong support to the appellant's case", including that there were no warning signs or lights.

In the decision, Justice Doyle said the council team leader who gave evidence accepted he was "required at that site to have signs delineating a safe passage around the works during the night time".

I do not accept that a local authority could consider itself acting in the reasonable discharge of its powers not to protect against those risks by the provision of reflective signs at least,

he wrote.

The court ordered BCC to pay Mr Dennison $675,926 plus interest and his court costs.