The injury to the shop manager was attributed partly to the failure to have the car park lit adequately at night.

The manager of the video shop had closed the shop at about 10pm, cleaned up, counted the takings, turned on the alarm and left the shop at about 10.15pm. He walked to his car about 10 metres from the shop in the car park. There were no lights on in the car park and it was very dark. He was attacked by three youths and hit on the head several times with a baseball bat. He instituted proceedings against the owner of the shopping centre and was awarded $205,000 dollars in compensation.

The owner of the shopping centre appealed to the Full Court of the Supreme Court, arguing that the lease did not impose an obligation on the lessor to provide lighting in the car park at the time of the attack (it had a discretion to install lighting) and that because the acts of a third party ie the attackers, were involved, there was no duty of care.

The Full Court rejected these arguments and dismissed the appeal.

Relevant factors taken into account were:

• the tenants had continually warned the shopping centre owners about the dangers of turning off the car park lighting before the video shop closed at night;
• it was not difficult to provide adequate security for the employees of the shops. The shopping centre owner merely had to allow the lights to remain on until about 10.20pm each night;
• the shopping centre owner was well aware that the public went to the nearby ATMs and the video shop at night;
• without adequate lighting, visitors were much more likely to be attacked. It was the failure to adequately light the area that caused the employee's injury.