The defendants were owners of a plot of unfenced waste land from which old houses had been cleared. It did not adjoin any public highway, but was accessible by a path leading from the back of the house in which the plaintiff, a child between two and three years old, lived with her parents. The public were allowed by the defendants to traverse the land, and children of all ages were in the habit of playing upon heaps of sand, stone, and other materials which from time to time were deposited there by the defendants. The plaintiff went upon the land unaccompanied by any older person and was shortly afterwards found upon a heap of paving stones, one of which had fallen upon her hand and injured it. There was no evidence to shew how the accident happened. In an action for negligence the jury found that children played upon the land with the knowledge and permission of the defendants ; that there was no invitation to the plaintiff to use the land unaccompanied; that the defendants ought to have known that there was a likelihood of children being injured by the stones ; and that the defendants did not take reasonable care to prevent children being injured thereby. Upon these findings Scrutton J. held that the case came within Cooke v Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland [1909] AC 229, and gave judgment for the plaintiff with damages.
Held: on appeal, that, there being neither allurement nor trap, nor invitation, nor dangerous object placed upon the land, the defendants were not liable.
The court considered what arrangements might constitute a trap on land which might attract children. Hamilton LJ said: ‘What objects which attract infants to their hurt are traps even to them? Not all objects with which children hurt themselves simpliciter. A child can get into mischief and hurt itself with anything if it is young enough. In some cases the answer may rest with the jury, but it must be a matter of law to say whether a given object can be a trap in the double sense of being fascinating and fatal. No strict answer has been, or perhaps ever will be, given to the question, but I am convinced that a heap of paving stones in broad daylight in a private close cannot so combine the properties of temptation and retribution as to be properly called a trap.’
Hamilton LJ, Farwell LJ
[1913] 1 KB 398, [1911-13] All ER 117, [1912] UKLawRpKQB 169
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – British Railways Board v Herrington HL 16-Feb-1972
Land-owner’s Possible Duty to Trespassers
The plaintiff, a child had gone through a fence onto the railway line, and been badly injured. The Board knew of the broken fence, but argued that they owed no duty to a trespasser.
Held: Whilst a land-owner owes no general duty of care to a . .
Cited – White v Blackmore CA 15-Jun-1972
The plaintiff attended a jalopy car race and was injured. It was a condition of his entry that he agreed that motor racing was dangerous and that he would not hold the organisers or others responsible if injured. He was injured when a safety rope, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Negligence
Updated: 29 November 2021; Ref: scu.181275