(High Court of Australia) A girl was injured playing tag with her friends at school. A boy threw a sharpened object which bounced off a post and hit her. The level of duty of care owed by a child was questioned: ‘The standard of care being objective, it is no answer for him, [that is a child] any more than it is for an adult, to say that the harm he caused was due to his being abnormally slow-witted, quick-tempered, absent- minded or inexperienced. But it does not follow that he cannot rely in his defence upon a limitation upon the capacity for foresight or prudence, not as being personal to himself, but as being characteristic of humanity at his stage of development and in that sense normal. By doing so he appeals to a standard of ordinariness, to an objective and not a subjective standard.’
Kitto J
[1966] ALR 513, [1966] 115 CLR 199
Austlii
Australia
Cited by:
Cited – Mullin v Richards and Birmingham City Council CA 6-Nov-1997
Two 15 year old schoolfriends were playing with rulers when one shattered and a fragment injured the eye of the other. She claimed negligence in the school. She appealed a finding that she was herself fifty per cent responsible.
Held: Although . .
Cited – Orchard v Lee CA 3-Apr-2009
The claimant appealed rejection of her claim for personal injuries. She was supervising a school playground, and was injured by a 13 year old child running backwards into her. She claimed against the boy. The judge found it to be mere horseplay.
Negligence
Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.190041