What makes Cole interesting is that the majority didn't agree on why the club should win. Two justices said there was no duty. Two others said there might be a duty but the evidence wasn't there for breach. That's a meaningful distinction — it means the question of whether licensed venues owe a duty of care to intoxicated patrons is not definitively settled in Australia, even after a High Court decision.
The personal autonomy argument is compelling up to a point. She refused the taxi. She refused the bus. Her companions said they'd look after her. At some point the club had done what was open to it. But the dissent raises the harder question: should a venue be able to commercially benefit from serving alcohol for hours, watch a patron become grossly intoxicated, and then rely on her own choices to escape liability entirely?
This is not an abstract debate. Liability of licensed premises comes up in personal injury claims regularly — whether the injured person is the patron, a third party, or someone else. Cole sets the current Australian position, but with a 4-2 split and two different majority reasonings, it leaves more room for argument than a cleaner decision would have.
