Public Liability Claims in Western Australia: Two Acts, Injury Thresholds and Time Limits

In Western Australia, a public liability claim runs on two separate Acts: the Occupiers' Liability Act 1985 sets the duty an occupier owes to people on the premises, and the Civil Liability Act 2002 covers the general negligence framework, defences and damages.

Who you claim against, and under which Act

A public liability claim in Western Australia is brought against the occupier of the premises, or a business, event organiser, or public authority responsible for the place where the injury happened, a shop, a rental property, a park, a footpath, a venue. It is a negligence claim, and in practice it is answered by that party's public liability insurer.

Two Acts govern it, more than in most other states. Where a claim turns on the physical state of premises the claimant entered, the Occupiers' Liability Act 1985 sets the duty owed. Everything else, negligence principles generally, the defences available, and how damages are assessed, sits in the Civil Liability Act 2002.

The occupier's duty under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1985

Section 4 of the Act states that sections 5 to 7 have effect "in place of the rules of the common law" for determining the care an occupier owes to a person entering the premises. Common law is preserved only for the separate question of who counts as the occupier in the first place, not for the content of the duty itself.

Section 5(1) sets the duty: an occupier must take such care as is reasonable in all the circumstances to see that a person will not suffer injury or damage because of a danger on the premises. Section 5(4) lists the factors a court weighs, including the gravity and likelihood of the probable injury, the entrant's age and ability to appreciate the danger, and the burden on the occupier of removing or protecting against the danger, weighed against the risk.

A landlord responsible for maintenance or repair under a tenancy owes the same statutory duty for dangers arising from a failure in that maintenance or repair, extending to sub-tenancies, and an occupier is not liable for an independent contractor's negligence provided the occupier took reasonable care in selecting and supervising the contractor.

Reduced duty to trespassers and people committing an offence

The Act reduces the duty in two situations. Where a person on the premises has willingly assumed a risk, the occupier's duty drops from the full reasonableness standard to a narrower one: not to create a danger with the deliberate intent of doing harm, and not to act with reckless disregard of the person's presence, under section 5(2).

Section 5(3) applies the same narrower duty to a person on the premises with the intention of committing, or in the commission of, an offence punishable by imprisonment. This is Western Australia's version of a reduced duty to a criminal entrant, and it sits in the occupiers' Act itself rather than in the Civil Liability Act 2002.

What you must prove under the Civil Liability Act 2002

Outside the occupiers' context, for example a claim against a business over how it ran an event, or a claim that does not turn on the physical state of premises, ordinary negligence principles under Part 1A of the Civil Liability Act 2002 apply. A claimant needs to show the defendant owed a duty of care, breached it by failing to do what a reasonable person would have done, having weighed the probability and seriousness of harm against the burden of taking precautions and the activity's social utility, and that the breach caused the injury.

Obvious risk, dangerous recreational activities and assumption of risk

Western Australia gives defendants two separate, overlapping defences built around the idea of an obvious risk, defined in section 5F as a risk that would have been obvious to a reasonable person in the injured person's position, whether or not it was prominent or conspicuous.

The narrower one, section 5H, is the dangerous recreational activity defence. It applies only where the claimant was engaged in a recreational activity, defined broadly to include any sport or leisure pursuit, that involved a significant risk of harm, and the harm resulted from an obvious risk of that activity. It applies whether or not the claimant was actually aware of the risk.

The broader one sits in Division 6, sections 5M to 5P, and is not limited to recreational activities at all. It can apply to an ordinary shop or footpath hazard just as much as to a sport. Section 5N presumes a claimant was aware of an obvious risk unless they prove otherwise. Section 5O removes any duty to warn of an obvious risk, subject to exceptions including where the defendant is a professional and the risk arises from a professional service. Section 5P removes liability for harm from an inherent risk, one that cannot be avoided by reasonable skill and care, though it does not affect a separate duty to warn. A defendant can also rely on section 5J to exclude liability for recreational services by a contract term, and section 5I gives a defence based on a risk warning given for an ordinary recreational activity.

Intoxication and its effect on a claim

Section 5L presumes a claimant was contributorily negligent if they were intoxicated at the time of the incident, unless the court is satisfied the intoxication was not self-induced. Unlike a fixed statutory percentage, this is a rebuttable presumption: the claimant can defeat it by establishing, on the balance of probabilities, that the intoxication did not contribute in any way to the harm.

Claims against a council or road authority

Part 1C of the Civil Liability Act 2002 protects public bodies, including local governments, from a range of claims, among them a policy-decision defence that requires the decision to have been so unreasonable that no reasonable public body could have made it.

The provision most relevant to an everyday injury, tripping on a footpath or road defect, is section 5Z. A road authority is not liable for a failure to carry out road work, or to consider carrying out road work, unless it had actual knowledge of the particular risk that caused the harm at the time of the failure. The protection is narrower than a blanket immunity: it applies only to a failure of road work as defined, construction, maintenance, inspection, repair, removal or replacement of a road, and it does not remove any other standard of care that would otherwise apply.

What compensation covers: Amount A, Amount C and the current figures

General, non-economic-loss damages in Western Australia run on a threshold-and-deductible system under section 9 of the Civil Liability Act 2002, built around two figures, Amount A and Amount C. If the assessed non-pecuniary loss is at or below Amount A, no damages are awarded at all. Above Amount A but at or below Amount C, damages are capped at the excess over Amount A. Above Amount C, a sliding-scale formula narrows the deductible as the assessed loss increases.

A separate, third figure, Amount B, applies only to a different head of damages, gratuitous domestic or home-care services, under sections 12 and 13. It is not part of the general-damages calculation, so a Western Australia public liability claim should not be described as running on an Amount A and Amount B system for general damages. The correct pairing there is Amount A and Amount C.

Under WA Government Gazette No. 64, published 12 June 2026 and effective from 1 July 2026, Amount A is $27,500, Amount C is $79,000, and Amount B is $9,000. The Act indexes all three amounts annually by the percentage change in the ABS Wage Price Index for Western Australia, rounded to the nearest $500, and the Gazette notice is confirmatory only, meaning the statutory amount still applies even if the notice itself is delayed or contains an error.

Pre-court steps, contributory negligence and time limits

Western Australia has no general pre-litigation notice-of-claim procedure for a public liability claim comparable to a regime some other states impose. The Civil Liability Act 2002's own table of contents has no equivalent Part, though court-rules-level requirements at the practice-direction level were not checked for this page.

Where a claimant's own negligence contributed to the harm, damages are apportioned under the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence and Tortfeasors' Contribution) Act 1947, which reduces damages "to such extent as the court thinks just," rather than under a fixed formula.

The general limitation period for a personal injury claim in Western Australia is 3 years, under the Limitation Act 2005.

What a Western Australia public liability claim is not

A public liability claim is not the same as a workplace injury claim, which runs through Western Australia's separate workers' compensation scheme. See Workers Compensation in Australia. It is also not the same as a motor vehicle injury claim, which runs through Western Australia's compulsory third-party insurance scheme rather than the Civil Liability Act's general-damages system. See Motor Accident Compensation in Australia. Where the injury results in death, see Wrongful Death Claims in Australia. An injury on common property in a strata scheme raises its own insurance questions, covered at Strata Law in Australia. For public liability claims generally across Australia, see Public Liability Claims in Australia.