Look before you leap

Abstract

ON a pleasant evening in Darwin, Australia, in April 1987 Nadia Romeo went with her friends to a popular spot, the Dripstone Cliffs, for a beach party. She was nearly 16 and had little experience of alcohol, but she and a friend consumed about 150ml of rum in 90 minutes. At about 11.45 pm both she and her friend fell over the edge of the cliffs onto the beach below and Nadia suffered high-level paraplegia. Neither of the girls had any recollection of the circumstances in which they fell, but there was an area of eroded ground at the top of the cliffs that might have appeared to the girls as a path to the beach below (although it did not have this appearance in daylight, nor would it have appeared this way to a sober, alert person on the night). In short, it appears that they either walked over the edge with their heads in the air or attempted to jump to the beach below (nearly 20 feet) and woefully misjudged the distance. None the less, Ms Romeo decided to sue the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory. Although she lost in every court, the 5–2 majority decision of the High Court of Australia in Romeo v. Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory (1998) 72 A.L.J.R. 208 will give little comfort to public bodies responsible for the control and management of land.