A man has suffered head injuries after falling head first off a nightclub balcony in front of a crowd of schoolies on the Gold Coast.

A Department of Community Spokeswoman said the man suffered head injuries after landing head first on the brick pavement.

I kind of feel sorry for the schoolies balconies…

Who’s liable? Well, not being a lawyer but having had some experience in these things, this is PROBABLY how it would work.

1: Mr & Mrs Bloggs own a property at 21 Crawley Crescent Dumbville. They have a big do one night, 47 people get on the verandah and begin to party hard and make assholes of themselves in general. The balcony decides it’s had enough and plummets like a falling koala.

2: Multiple injuries, perhaps a death or permanent disability (usually somebody on a high income!)

3: Ambulance comes and carts off the wounded and maimed

4: Ambos report matter to police

5: Police prepare a report, and probably send it to the coroner.

6: Workcover or similar statutory authority begin an investigation.

7: Balcony is found to have structural defects

8: Lawyers get involved and sue the unfortunate Blogg’s as first respondant.

9: Bloggs then blame the last tradesman who worked on this section of the house, or the builder, or if recently purchased, the bloke who carried out the pre-purchase inspection and didnt find the defect.

10: These then become second, third and so on, respondants.

11: Bloggs try to claim on thier public liability and usually find that it does not cover negligence – the defence of “we didn’t know about it” usually is of no meaning.

You still have a duty of care, which I might add means also having enough common dog fuck to realise that so many people on a deck of a given size made of timber, and each person weighing 80 or so kilos is not real bright! What a lot of people cant seem to get thier heads around is that twelve people of varying builds will weigh in at almost ONE TONNE! Yep, think about that one. Most decks were not engineered for this many people or that sort of weight when they were built, and age ony makes the limitations worse. You would probably find that with only three or four people trudging about on those decks that collapsed, they would have still had YEARS in them before they went.

12: Lawyers basically then ramp up, look at the assets of all involved and go for whoever has got the most dosh.

And that is what is often comes down to. As an example, you are walking through the park and a homeless fuck spills a hot coffe on you and scalds your foot. It’s not worth sueing him, as it costs on average $20,000 bucks to sue anyone these days, and he only has about $2.75 to his name anyway. BUT go to your local coffee lounge and the waiter drops a hot java in your lap, then thats a different story. The coffee shop has PUBLIC LIABILITY insurance, and PRODUCT LIABILITY insurance. They CAN be successfully sued.

If the property is a rental property, there are also complications if a tennant is injured. Several years ago, there was a case where a person renting a property had complained for several years to the managing agent about a tear in the hallway carpet outside the bathroom. The agent approached the owner, and both agent and owner elected NOT to repair it.

Several months later, the tennant tripped on the carpet, and sustained permanent spinal injuries. She sued, and the matter went to the (I think) Supreme Court.

OOPS! Theres PROOF that it was reported in the form of letters from the agent to the tennant! Agent promptly produces letter from property owner refusing to fix the problem (“It’s only a bloody rental property”!), and the owner and agent were named first and second resondents. OH CRAP! Owner and Real Estate were found guilty of negligence and failing in thier DUTY OF CARE, and were made to compensate the victim jointly.

End of the tale was a huge payout awarded to the tennant, who now OWNS (so I am told) the property in question. She also has new carpet!

But in reality, it can be hard to pin the rap on anyone. A deck can be poorly designed, poorly built, badly maintained, the damage can be obvious or not, The house owner or occupier may not be aware there is a problem at all, simply because they dont know what to look for. I have met a LOT of people who cant screw in a light bulb, and I am NOT KIDDING!

So now, to the nitty gritty of all this. What do I look at when I walk onto someones deck? What are the danger signs?

1: Concrete deck (or concrete wall on it) Look for cracking, and / or brownish rust stains on the surface. This can be an indicator of “concrete cancer”, which means that for whatever reason, such as proximity to salt air, or the reinforcing having not enough concrete over it, the steel has begun to rust. As the reinforcing rusts, i.e. reverts to its native state, it expands, and crack ot bits of concrete. As the cracks get bigger, more moisure and corrosive elements get in and the process speeds up. Eventually, the concrete is completely cracked, and is only being held in place by rusted steel rods. STAY OFF THESE DECKS if you see this. Also not a good idea to buy or live in a unit that has this problem visible, as depending on how it was constructed, the problem may extend to the actual floor structure of the building itself.

2: Timber decks. Watch for floor boards that feel “soft” underfoot, or bend. Be wary of sharp cracking noises when walking on timber decks, these may only be nail movement, but they CAN indicate worse.

Be careful of decks that seem to either sag or bounce when being walked on. If you feel SIDEWAYS or LATERAL movement in a deck GET THE FUCK OFF IT! I have actually got into the habit of looking at the underside of decks when I visit people. A deck should have plenty of substantial timber members underneath it. If it hasnt, and there are lots of people on it, or if it moves, sways or you generally dont like the look of it, then dont get on it. There is a calculation for how many people a deck in good condition can carry per square metre, but I dont know what it is ( I rather think it would be how many square metres of deck are needed for one person)!

But you are right, it is a problem, and one that will only get worse. It’s been of concern to me for many years, so as you can see, I took the trouble to look into it a bit deeper (chance favours the prepared mind). It can be a very interesting subject actually, as there are so many variables that come into play.

After reading about your experience rotten bearers and joists I’m not walking on anything type of wooden balcony/decking if there’s more then 2 people on it!

Out of curiosity who’s liable when these things collapse? The person who last did the work? The owner themselves? The council? Home insurance?

Say I’m at some party and a balcony deck goes under who foots the bill? Or does it come under medicare and it’s up to me to launch civil action?

More often than not, when the old boards had been removed, there was dry rot in the bearers and joists. Almost always, the instruction was to “just replace the boards”. Many owners of investment properties cannot or will not pay to replace bearers or joists, as it is usually expensive. Putting new boards over the top will help, as it distributes the weight load on the deck more evenly, but that will only stop people going through in one place. It will not stop a deck from collapsing. If the bearers and joists are just starting the rot process, the rot can be chipped out and dried, then builders bog put in as a filler, and tar paint over the top of the timbers to slow the process. This is only workable for very shallow rot holes (5 to 10 mm – any more it needs to be replaced)

But this only buys time, and although it is better than doing nothing, it really is only a band-aid fix. I would hate to estimate the number of timber decks that I have seen in this condition, but the really scary thing is the attitude of the real estate agents / owners, which is usually something like “Just pactch it up, its only a rental, and we really dont care about it”. In the end, I just refused to do decks, simply not worth taking the risk if something happened.

FOR FUCKS SAKE PEOPLE LIVE IN THESE RAT TRAPS! People with kids, old people, disabled people, and of course, people who dont know any better and happily load these decks way beyond thier safe limit. My daughter lives in one of these places now, the deck is 3 metres off the ground, and the bearers and joists are rotten. I have told her to keep off it.

I think that part of the council ratepaying process needs to be an inspection of the structural integrity of a property. This could be done every three years or so, (similar to annual car rego checks) and owners advised of needed repairs, which would then be checked on completetion.

The thing is, that something needs to be done. Now, before more of these events occur.

And all of that is without even looking at all of those suspended concrete balconies, riddled with concrete cancer, getting ready to drop without warning.