Assignment task:
Richard is a builder. He has a contract to build a house for a customer in a suburb close to the city-centre in Melbourne. He has set up a worksite with a fence around it and a notice which says 'All persons entering the worksite must wear a hard-hat'. He has nearly finished the house, and is the final stages of the job, which requires him to lift tiles up to the top of the house before fitting them to the wooden frame of the roof. Richard usually stacks the tiles close to the middle of the frame, but because he can't be bothered to move back and forth each time he needs to pick up a new tile, he decides one day to stack the tiles along the edge of the roof. As he is reaching for a tile, his arm knocks over the pile and three tiles fall towards the ground. One tile hits Peter, who has come onto the building site to get Richard to sign some delivery forms. Peter is not wearing a hard-hat, and suffers a brain injury when a tile hits him on the head. Another tile hits Frank, who is fitting windows The tile hits his foot. Although the cut is very small and would usually require only a few stitches, for which the damages awarded would have been $ 3 000, Frank suffers from a rare blood disease, and the injury results in his foot having to be amputated, damages for which would be $ 200 000. The third tile hits and bursts a water pipe in a trench which carries water to the whole neighbourhood and which a plumber was working on. Although no-one's house is flooded, water from the burst pipe runs across the street, and the traffic authorities close off the street while the pipe is being fixed. This causes a 1-hour traffic delay. Mary, who runs her own personal retirement fund, is delayed in getting home, and loses the profit of $ 10 000 she would have made had she been able to sell certain shares that day. Advice Richard of his liabilities under the law of negligence, citing relevant legal authority.