Free Noah's Law by Randa Abdel-Fattah Page B

negligence, a plaintiff must show that the defendant, or shall I say alleged tortfeasor—’
    â€˜Dad,’ I interrupted, ‘Amit wanted me to ask you so he could explain it to his mum. Her English isn’t too good. Could you maybe simplify it?’
    â€˜Could you maybe get a life and talk about something else?’ Nadine snapped.
    â€˜I have spoken to her before and her English was perfect,’ Dad said, ignoring the interruption. ‘Anyway, I thought Amit’s mother had a PhD in electronic engineering from Sydney University?’
    â€˜Er . . . well, that’s all pretty technical. You know what non-humanities faculties are like – robots without language, as you say.’
    Dad did his elitist chuckle. Appealing to his egotistical superiority complex always worked (he was of the opinion that the legal faculty was the only legitimate source of education in a university).
    â€˜Okay, well, to put it simply – and oh, how this pains me, Noah, as the law is a beautifully complex framework – a person is guilty of negligent conduct when they owed another person a duty to take care, they failed to take care, and their failure caused the other person to suffer physical injury to person or property. That is a hopelessly simplified summary. There are established relationships in which a duty of care is owed, an employer/employee relationship being one of them.’
    Nadine rolled her eyes. ‘Dad, do you realise you are quite possibly the nerdiest human being in Sydney?’
    Dad beamed. ‘Thank you, Nadine. I sincerely appreciate the compliment.’
    I mulled over Dad’s words. Putting aside all the jargon, it seemed to me that it basically came down to this: Jenkins Storage World was supposed to have taken care of Maureen (whatever that meant). Maybe done something to prevent her death. It didn’t. She died. So Jenkins Storage World was negligent.
    â€˜And what’s loss of expectation of benefit mean?’ I asked.
    Nadine jumped in again. ‘It’s like when you expect to have breakfast and end up listening to a law lecture.’
    â€˜Put the two together and you’re in heaven,’ Dad said. Then he turned to me. ‘The answer to your question depends on the scenario.’
    â€˜Say someone dies at work and their, er, wife survives and sues for a loss of expectation of benefit. What does that mean?’
    â€˜Does Amit’s mother know somebody who’s died?’
    â€˜Um, I think so . . .’ I shrugged. ‘I’m just the messenger, conveying the questions. I can’t be sure.’
    Dad raised an eyebrow but didn’t challenge me. ‘In the circumstances you’ve cited, it means that the surviving spouse is suing as a dependent on the basis that had the deceased not died, they would have had an income to depend upon. So their expectation of that income no longer exists and they seek to be compensated accordingly.’
    â€˜In other words, they’re no longer able to sponge money off their spouse so they should get compo?’
    â€˜Well, I suppose you could put it that way. But really, Noah, you have a better vocabulary—’
    â€˜Okay, cool, thanks,’ I said, cutting him off. I stuffed my mouth with pancake to send a clear signal that the conversation had come to an end.

 
    The office was fairly quiet on Monday morning as some of the lawyers had chosen to extend their leave. Jacinta was working through the holiday season to earn some extra cash, but Aunt Nirvine had her in the Supreme Court library all day researching a new case law precedent so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her until the end of the day when we left the office together.
    â€˜How’s the flatmate-hunting coming along?’
    The doors of the elevator opened and we walked outside onto the crowded street.
    Jacinta groaned. ‘Terrible. Why is everybody so weird? At least the agent has finally put someone