A pedestrian distracted by his mobile phone has been found wholly at fault after being struck while crossing a busy Sydney road.
The ruling, handed down by the Personal Injury Commission of New South Wales, serves as a pointed reminder for claims professionals assessing fault in an age when smartphone distraction has become a familiar factor in road incidents.
Ilija Kojic was crossing Victoria Road at Drummoyne on May 25, 2024, when he was hit by a Toyota Yaris. He had successfully navigated three southbound lanes and the median strip before stepping into the northbound kerbside lane, where Ms Apostolidis was driving at around 50 kilometres per hour. The posted speed limit was 60.
Two witnesses — the driver and a motorist travelling behind her — told investigators that Kojic was looking down at his phone when he emerged suddenly from between stationary vehicles.
Kojic lodged a claim for statutory benefits with NRMA Insurance, the third-party insurer for the Yaris. In March 2025, the insurer denied liability for ongoing benefits under section 3.28 of the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017, which bars injured persons from receiving statutory benefits beyond 52 weeks if they were wholly or mostly at fault for the accident.
Kojic challenged the decision, insisting he was not using his phone and had checked carefully before crossing. His dispute was registered with the Commission in May 2025.
Member Belinda Cassidy was not persuaded. In her decision dated January 13, 2026, she accepted the evidence of the driver and the independent witness, finding their accounts consistent.
Applying the framework from AAI Limited t/as GIO v Evic, which treats "wholly or mostly at fault" as a single concept aimed at measuring contributory negligence, Member Cassidy found Kojic fell well short of the care expected of a reasonable person.
His failings were threefold: he did not use the pedestrian crossing roughly 85 metres away, he failed to look properly before stepping into the lane, and he was distracted by his phone. The driver, meanwhile, was found blameless — she was within the speed limit, watching the road, and simply had no time to react.
Member Cassidy did not mince words. The phone distraction, she said, was "one example of a worst possible case of contributory negligence," justifying a 100% finding against Kojic.
She added that even if the phone had not been a factor, Kojic's other lapses would still have attracted an 80% contributory negligence finding.
For insurers and claims teams, the decision underscores the weight that mobile phone use can carry in fault assessments under the Act. It also demonstrates how the Evic framework operates in practice when a claimant's conduct is pitted against that of a driver found to have done nothing wrong.
