$1m Award for Diving Accident

Diving accident? Where does personal responsibility come into play.

It looks like Australia has the same sue happy mentality as the USA. You dive off a bridge, break your neck and even though there were signs prohibiting diving it isn't your fault. Why? Because the signs didn't say it was dangerous.

A MAN who became a paraplegic at 14 when he dived off a road bridge into a New South Wales river was awarded more than $1 million in damages today.

Philip Dederer, now 20, sued the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) and the Great Lakes Shire Council in the NSW Supreme Court after he was paralysed in a diving accident off the Forster/Tuncurry Bridge into the Wallamba River on December 31, 1998.

Mr Dederer, from Newcastle, claimed the RTA and the council were negligent despite there being signs prohibiting diving, because the signs did not say diving was dangerous.
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Justice John Dunford agreed and today awarded Mr Dederer $1,050,000 in damages. Read the rest.