Elite school sued over slip at auditorium, claims architect may be to blame

A Brisbane architect who allegedly designed a set of stairs at an elite school’s 1500-seat auditorium may be sued by a man who fell down them after a Year 12 award ceremony.

Inside the auditorium at the Edmund Rice Performing Arts Centre.

A Brisbane architect who allegedly designed a set of stairs at an elite school’s 1500-seat auditorium may be sued by a man who fell down them after a Year 12 award ceremony.

Paul Robert McNae from Highgate Hill was given the green light to sue St Laurence’s College in South Brisbane for negligence by a deputy registrar of the District Court in Brisbane on October 19, court documents reveal.

The 58-year-old plans to sue for injuries he suffered when he fell down a set of concrete stairs on October 22, 2020, hurting his wrist, elbow, ankle, feet, knee, neck, back and hips.

Architect Lada Bodnaruk from Brisbane firm Conrad Gargett

Lawyers for the school allege in documents filed in court that Lada Bodnaruk from firm Conrad Gargett was “the responsible architect” at the firm, or “one of the responsible architects assigned to the project” to design the Edmund Rice Performing Arts Centre on the school grounds.

The school’s lawyers from firm Hall and Wilcox wrote to Conrad Gargett’s lawyers on March 9 last year saying they would “call on Conrad Gargett to indemnify the” school in relation to Mr McNae’s claim if the court finds “that the stairs were not safe or appropriate to use (which is denied)”.

Mr McNae alleges he “rolled in mid-air to his right, landing initially on his right side” when walking down a set of stairs “at the top level of the school grounds” after leaving a year 12 award ceremony at the centre with his wife on October 22, 2020.

“At the end of the ceremony, the claimant and his wife exited the ERPAC via the top doors and headed towards a set of stairs at the top level of the school grounds,” court documents state.

Edmund Rice Performing Arts Centre.

Mr McNae alleges he fell after he moved to his left to give his wife more room after he heard a “loud sound of school boys running up a lower set of stairs toward them”.

He says he walked down two steps and then moved to the left to go down the next step but the “immediate step was not there”.

He claims he fell down “six of the larger concrete steps, which were double the height and width of the steps” he started walking down.

“The stairs on which the claimant fell were designed and constructed as part of a major renovation in or around 2010,” Hall and Wilcox wrote in the March 9 letter filed in court.

Edmund Rice Performing Arts Centre

“Our instructions are that Conrad Gargett were the architects for this project,” the letter states.

“As the project architect we understand Conrad Gargett was responsible for the design of the stairs in question and ensuring these were safe for use and compliant with all relevant building codes. Conrad Gargett had a duty of care to carry out its works with reasonable care, skill, diligence and/or in a manner which would be expected of a reasonably competent architect,” the letter filed in court states.

Mr McNae sent his notice of claim under personal injury law to the principal of St Laurence’s College on December 2, 2020, and he has obtained a report from mechanical and biomedical engineer William Bailey.

Law firm Moray and Agnew, acting for Conrad Gargett told the school’s lawyers that Lada Bodnaruk was the architect who should be named as the “contributor”.

The Courier-Mail has approached Ms Bodnaruk for comment.