Elle runs a Bed Breakfast house in the Southern Highlands in NSW. To give it a certain quaintness, Elle decides to install outside shutters to...

Elle runs a Bed & Breakfast house in the Southern Highlands in NSW. To give it a

certain quaintness, Elle decides to install outside shutters to frame her windows. Elle

orders the pine shutters, which are on sale in the local hardware store. Elle hires a

handyman to install the shutters. The instructions are contained in a booklet

supplied with the shutters. In very small writing appears the following statement:

These shutters are for decoration only and should not be installed where

exposed to harsh weather conditions.

The handyman read this clause but did not say anything to Elle.

After the shutters had been in place for several months, the wood appeared to be

splitting. Elle notices that some of the shutters are damaged but does nothing about

them.

On a windy evening, one of the damaged shutters is blown from the window

surrounds and hits Kimberley, a guest who was in the garden enjoying her one

cigarette per day. Another shutter flies off and hits Charles, a member of the public,

who is taking a short cut across Elle's property having been caught out too long on a

bush walk.

Kimberley suffers bruising and cuts across her arm and shoulder and develops a

phobia about wind, claiming she can no longer leave the security of her own home,

and cannot work. Charles suffers a head injury and is off work for six months

recovering.

Elle immediately removes all the shutters.

Kimberley and Charles have advised that they intend to sue Elle in negligence.

Advise Elle on the likelihood of those claims being successful, giving full legal

reasons for your response.