Background
Blake Allan Burgess and Gregory John Burgess were each charged in the District Court of New South Wales with manslaughter by criminal negligence and with being an accessory before the fact to dangerous driving occasioning death. The charges arose from an August 2021 journey during which a 26.5-kilogram roll of steel wire fell from a Steeline FNW semi-trailer and struck another vehicle, killing its driver, Martin Stait. The Crown alleged that the wire was inadequately secured and that both applicants participated in loading the trailer and in managing the business.
For the manslaughter counts, the Crown relied on both a “loader duty” arising from the applicants’ alleged involvement in loading the trailer and a separate “manager duty” requiring them to implement adequate systems and procedures for safe loading and transport. After the District Court ruled that the Crown could proceed on the managerial-duty theory, the applicants sought leave to appeal. They also challenged an earlier ruling concerning the knowledge required to establish their alleged accessorial liability for dangerous driving occasioning death.
The Court’s Holding
The Court granted leave on the first ground, allowed the appeal, and vacated the District Court’s 21 April 2026 decision. It held that the facts alleged in the Crown’s amended case statement were incapable of establishing the asserted managerial duty. The Crown had not alleged acts or conduct, distinct from the applicants’ alleged loading activities, by which either applicant causally contributed to creating the danger or personally assumed responsibility for the safety of the transport activity. Their managerial status and alleged failures to implement safety systems could not by themselves supply the legal duty required for manslaughter based on an omission.
The Court did not hold that a manager can never personally owe a duty capable of supporting criminally negligent manslaughter. Such a duty might arise where managerial decisions or conduct cause a business to undertake a dangerous activity or help create a dangerous state of affairs. The ruling was limited to the insufficiency of the facts pleaded here, and it did not disturb the Crown’s loader-duty theory.
Leave was refused on the second ground because the Crown conceded that knowledge merely of the load’s physical configuration and restraints was insufficient for accessorial liability. The Crown accepted that it must prove the applicants knew the restraints were poorly applied and created a real risk of failure. Because the Crown would not pursue the legally deficient, lesser knowledge standard, the Court found no utility in appellate intervention on that ground.
Key Takeaways
- Criminally negligent manslaughter based on an omission requires a legal duty to perform the specific act allegedly omitted.
- A managerial position, control over business operations, or failure to establish safety procedures does not by itself create a personal duty to third parties capable of supporting manslaughter liability.
- A personal managerial duty remains possible where pleaded facts show that the individual’s acts or decisions helped create the danger or amounted to a personal assumption of responsibility.
- For the accessorial charge as framed here, the Crown must prove knowledge that the load restraints were poorly applied and presented a real risk of failure, not merely knowledge of their configuration.
Why It Matters
The decision limits the use of broad managerial-responsibility allegations to establish personal liability for manslaughter by omission. Prosecutors must identify facts establishing why the particular manager personally owed the asserted duty, including the conduct connecting that person to the creation of the danger or an assumption of responsibility; alleged omissions cannot themselves establish the antecedent duty to act.
At the same time, the Court left open liability based on sufficiently particularized managerial conduct and permitted the prosecution’s distinct loader-duty case to remain. The ruling therefore concerns the permissible legal and factual basis of the Crown’s case, not the applicants’ ultimate guilt or innocence.