"[18] The [respondent] had only entered the home through the open door seconds before the accident occurred. It is difficult to comprehend how he did not see and react to the dark metal framework surrounding the closed glass door. But the [respondent] did say that, although not in a hurry, he had his head up and was looking forward when he walked into the door. He did not see any of the framework even through his peripheral vision.
...
[20] The question is whether the [appellant] unreasonably failed to take specific steps to guard against the danger of someone who, like the [respondent], might have focused on the glass panel when leaving the entry hall oblivious to the other features indicating the presence of a closed doorway. I do not believe it is any answer to this question to say that visitors to the display home could be expected to exercise ordinary care for their own safety. Judging the matter prospectively, as I agree I am required to do, I believe there was certainly a risk of someone overlooking the obvious features of the closed doorway and walking into the clear pane of glass. That risk was always there even on the assumption that visitors to the display home would exercise ordinary care for their own safety.
[21] I am satisfied that a reasonable person in the [appellant's] position should have foreseen the risk of injury to someone who, like the [respondent], focused on the glass panel in the doorway and overlooked the other features indicating that there was a door and that it was closed.
[22] Counsel for the [appellant] submitted that, even if there was a risk which a reasonable person in the [appellant's] position should have foreseen, that risk of injury was so remote that it called for no response from the [appellant]. Support for this submission is to be found in the evidence that numerous visitors, perhaps as many as 4,000, visited the display home over a 14 month period without any similar kind of accident having been reported. I accept this is a significant factor but it does not alter my view that the risk of injury, while remote, was still reasonably foreseeable. The magnitude of the risk and its degree of probability have to be assessed. While most visitors exercising ordinary care for their own safety would have seen the obvious features of a closed doorway there was always a real risk of less attentive persons overlooking these features and focussing on the glass panel believing it to be an open access or exit. In this regard the Australian Standard 1288 is a significant factor. The experts have recognised the risk of transparent glass panels being mistaken for an unimpeded path of travel and have recommended that it should be marked in some way as to indicate its presence. There was a reasonably inexpensive and convenient way of minimising the risk by marking the glass panel with a motif or decal. It is no answer to say this might have affected the aesthetic appeal of the doorway. Had that been done it is reasonable to assume that a visitor who, like the [respondent], was oblivious to the other features indicating a closed doorway, and focused on the glass panel itself, believing it to be an open exit, would see the markings on the glass and realise his or her error before it was too late.
[23] I believe the [appellant's] duty to visitors to the display house included the placement of some visible sign or mark on the glass panel of the closed doorway. ...
[24] I am satisfied the [appellant's] use of clear glass in the closed front door without placing some form of mark on the glass panel to warn visitors like the [respondent] that the door was in the closed position was negligent."