Duty of care

Simonds v Isle of Wight Council (QBD TLR 9 October)

A primary school sports day was held at playing fields in a neighbouring village where there were children’s swings some 50m away from the activities. After picnicking with his mother, the claimant went to play on the swings, jumped off and broke his arm. The judge concluded that it had been a properly supervised event and the school had had a good plan for dealing with the swings; no one other than the claimant had played on them. Playing fields cannot be made free of all hazard. The mere fact that the school had diagnosed the possible or potential hazard did not mean that it was duty bound to take the step of immobilising the swings. This was simply an accident and there had been no breach of any duty by the school, or such breach was not causative. The danger in such decisions was that the upshot would not be that swings were fenced off; it was far more likely that sports days and other simple pleasurable sporting events would not be held if word got round that a school could be held liable in such cases. Such events would become uninsurable, or only at prohibitive costs. A warning against this approach had been trenchantly contained in the recent House of Lords’ decision in Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council [2003] 3 WLR 715; 21/ LL p70). The common sense of the matter was that this had been an accident for which no liability attached to the school and thence to the council.