A rail company has won a court battle over the cause of serious injuries to a commuter who slipped on a recently tiled train station staircase. 

Sydney Trains took its case to the NSW Appeal Court after a district court earlier found it liable for the injuries to Nicole Michael at Penshurst train station in August 2016. 

The district court ruled the company behind the station refurb – Infrastruction – was at fault for installing tiles that could be slippery when wet, but that Sydney Trains, in opening the concourse stairway to the public when it knew of the defective tiles, “broke the chain of causation” and therefore it alone shouldered the blame. 

However, the Appeal Court has rejected this, saying the exact circumstances around the slip-testing of the tiles during the work and the opening of the staircase are unclear. 

“The use of metaphors such as ‘break the chain of causation’ is no substitute for legal analysis,” Justice Mark Leeming wrote in his judgment. “It was not established that Sydney Trains made a deliberate decision to reopen a stairway known to be more slippery than the specifications it had proposed, or that it even appreciated the nature of the defect.” 

He added: “The law has long proceeded on the basis that more than one act may be a sufficient cause of an injury, in which case ... both acts will be regarded as a cause of the entirety of the loss or damage.” 

The ruling follows a long-running legal dispute over the fall. 

Ms Michael sued Sydney Trains and in July 2018 was awarded almost $430,000 plus costs, reduced on appeal to $409,000. 

After Infrastruction was deregistered in June 2020, Sydney Trains sued its public liability insurer, Lloyd’s underwriter Argo, over the slippery tiles – prompting the district court’s “chain of causation” ruling. 

Argo argued its policy should not respond in any case, because the liability was around breach of contract for laying the tiles, not the subsequent personal injury.  

But this has also been rejected by the Appeal Court. It says the relevant “occurrence” was not the laying of tiles but Ms Michael’s slip and injuries. 

The parties were directed to find agreement or file arguments on the sum now due to Sydney Trains. 

See the judgment here.