The Gazette 1984

JULY/AUGIJST 1984

GAZETTE

event. The shot had been thrown by another girl, who was aged 15, in the course of a competitive game of "putting the shot". Four girls were competing in the game which was being held for the purpose of selecting two of them to represent the school. Other events were being run in the school's sporting complex at the same time for the same reason. After the first round had been completed, the physical education teacher instructed the girls to continue on in order and to mark down their distances with numbered pegs while she went to another part of the field to organise the girls' long jump. She would return some minutes later to take the final measurements. When the teacher had left, the girls carried on with their throws. While the plaintiff and another girl were measuring the distance of a third girl's throw, the 15-year- old girl took her turn and struck the plaintiff on the head. 13 The plaintiff sued the physical education teacher and the school management for negligence. In his charge to the jury, Mr. Justice O'Hanlon said the issues in the case boiled down to a lack of supervision or nothing. "Here was an irresponsible action by a child of 15 and should the teacher have foreseen that one of the four children participating in 'putting the shot' would have so behaved?" 14 Two questions were put to the jury: (1) whether the school had been negligent in failing to provide supervision that was adequate to the occasion; and (2) whether the school had been negligent in failing to provide a safe system for the conduct of the event. The jury answered "no" to both questions. It is useful to look at some English decisions on this general question, bearing in mind the differences that inevitably flow from the absence ofjuries in some of these cases. In Gibbs -v- Barking Corporation 15 liability was imposed where a boy who was required to vault over a horse landed "in a stumble" and was injured. It appears that the master in charge "did nothing to assist the boy in landing'" 6 . In upholding the decree against the school authorities Slesser L.J., in the Court of Appeal, said: "The games' master does not seem to have acted with the promptitude which the law requires.'" 7 In contrast, in Wright -v- Cheshire County Council 18 , no liability was imposed where the plaintiff was injured when vaulting because a fellow-student whose task it was to steady him after vaulting ran off when the school bell rang. The Court of Appeal stressed the fact that it was the approved procedure in schools to leave boys who had a little practice themselves to carry out the exercise by themselves, so as to encourage self-reliance. Morris L.J. considered that the school's obligation to take care did not mean: "That the adopted system should have to be such that in no foreseeable circumstance or situation could there be any possible or conceivable contingency of some slight mishap. If that were so, the activities of the young would be unduly circum- scribed and only inactivity and inanition could be planned.'" 9 In Cahill -v- West Ham Corporation 20 , a master organised a relay race in one of the classrooms. When the plaintiff, who took part in the race, reached the end of the room, his arm went through a glass partition and was severely cut.

The plaintiffs action for negligence was based on the unsuitability of the classroom for races of this kind, since the room was surrounded by glass partitions and the floor was slippery. The school's defence was that the rule of the race was that the boys should touch the master, not the glass partition. The plaintiff denied this, saying that he had been "told to run down the hall, touch what was in front of him, and run back". The short report of the case states that Mr. Justice Porter, rejecting the claim, said that, even if the facts had been as stated by the plaintiff, he would have held that there was no negligence. "It might have been otherwise if they had been told to touch the glass." 21 This case may be contrasted with Ralph -v- L.C.C. 22 Again a schoolboy was injured by putting his hand through a glass partition when playing an organised game within the school building. The Court of Appeal upheld the imposition of liability at trial. It is only fair to note that, in contrast to Cahill's case, the game was of a chasing variety, involving more random movements by the boys, who would be "slipping and sliding about all over the place." 23 It is interesting to compare the rather harsh decision of Jones -v- L.C.C} 4 , where no liability was imposed when a child, ordered to play an organised strenuous competitive game called "raider and horses", fell on a floor which had no matting. Mr. Justice Avory, evincing little sympathy for the plaintiffs case, considered that: "if there had been matting it would have been said that there ought to have been a mattress; and if there had been a mattress it would have been said there ought to have been a feather-bed; and if there had been a feather bed, that the boys ought to have been wrapped up in cotton wool or rubber." 25 In Canada the general thrust of the decisions 26 is against imposing too stringent a duty on the school authorities in relation to gymnastic education, but the decision of Myers -v- Peel County Board of Education 11 in 1981 shows how difficult it is to predict the outcome of these cases. The plaintiff, a fifteen-year-old boy, was injured when attempting to dismount from rings in a gym class. At the time he was one of a small group of unsupervised students. This was the first time he had attempted the manoeuvre. His friend, who had been allocated the task of steadying him when he came off the ring, had moved away just as he was about to dismount. The plaintiff in his action against the school authorities pleaded that there had been a negligent lack of supervision and that the mats supplied were too thin. He won his action at trial; the Ontario Court of Appeal by a majority reversed but the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously restored the verdict in his favour. Allegations of negligence in relation to instructions have been made outside the context of sports and gymnastic injuries. In James -v- River East School Division 28 , the plaintiff, an eighteen-year-old "above average student", was injured when nitric acid, which she was heating in the course of a laboratory experiment, spattered onto her face. Liability was imposed on the school. The instructions for the experiment had not referred to the necessity of wearing goggles. Deniset J. stated: "Goggles were available. None were recommended on this occasion by the teacher . . . His excuse that the students knew about the goggles and that none

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