Priestley 11 · Usually first year
Torts for Australian law students
Torts is the subject where students first learn that the common law and a statute can answer the same question differently. Negligence is taught as a sequence, duty then breach then causation then damage, and every state and territory has civil liability legislation sitting on top of it that changes parts of the sequence.
What the subject covers
- Negligence: duty of care, breach, causation, remoteness and damage
- The civil liability legislation in each state and territory
- Trespass to the person and to land, and the difference from negligence
- Nuisance, private and public
- Defamation and the statutory defences
- Vicarious liability, contributory negligence and the assessment of damages
Topic coverage varies between law schools and between jurisdictions. Your subject guide is the one that counts.
Cases you will meet in an Australian Torts course
Three decisions that turn up in Torts across Australian law schools. Some of them are English decisions that Australian courses still teach as core authority, so this is a list of what you will be taught rather than a list of Australian judgments. Treat it as a starting point rather than a reading list. Your course sets its own, and it is the one that counts.
Donoghue v Stevenson
[1932] AC 562
The neighbour principle, and the case every Torts course opens with.
Wyong Shire Council v Shirt
(1980) 146 CLR 40
Breach, and the calculus of negligence as Australian courts apply it.
Rogers v Whitaker
(1992) 175 CLR 479
The duty to warn of a material risk, and the rejection of the Bolam test in Australia.
Longer explainer: Donoghue v Stevenson explained
How the subject is assessed
A negligence problem question is close to universal, usually in weeks 8 to 10, and it is where the statute has to be applied rather than mentioned. The final exam tends to combine a long problem with a short essay on a doctrinal question.
Using CaseSharp for Torts
Problem questions
Run duty, breach, causation and damage in order, and check the civil liability provision alongside the common law authority at each step. Every citation in an answer links to the paragraph it came from.
Case notes
Torts case notes usually ask what the ratio actually was, which is harder than it sounds in a multi-judgment High Court decision. A brief separates what was held from what was said along the way.
AGLC4 essays
Torts essays cite English and Australian decisions side by side, and the punctuation differs. The generator returns both forms with pinpoints, and tells you when a reference needs manual review.
Exam scaffolds
One scaffold per element, with the leading case and the statutory provision on the same line. Check the citing cases across the lot before SWOTVAC.
CaseSharp is a research and study tool. It does not write your problem question answer or your research essay. Every substantive output carries a human-review notice, and where there is no authority to support an answer, Sharp says so instead of inventing a case to fill the gap.
Try it on a Torts question
Create a free account and run a Torts query like the one below, so you can see what comes back before you decide anything.
breach of duty Wyong Shire Council v Shirt
73,000 audited Australian decisions, current to the end of April 2026.