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GAZETTE
' APRIL 1990
LAWBRIEF
Edited by/Eamonn
G. Hall, $rblicitor.
IS A C L UB L I ABLE FOR A
M E M B E R ' S I N J UR I E S?
The difficult issue of liability of
members of an unincorporated club
arose in the case of
Robertson -v-
Ridiey
[1989] 2 All ER 474. The
plaintiff, a member of an unincor-
porated members' club, was riding
his motorcycle out of the club
grounds when he failed to see a
pothole in the driveway, fell off and
was injured. He brought an action
against the chairman and secretary
of the club as officers of the club,
claiming that they were liable for
the injuries he had sustained by
reason of the condition of the
club's premises, on the ground that
the rules of the club, which pro-
vided that the chairman and
secretary "were responsible in
law . . . for the conduct of the
club", gave rise to a duty to main-
tain the premises in a reasonable
state of safety and repair. The
judge of first instance dismissed
the claim, holding that the club
rules merely provided that the two
officers were to be responsible for
those legal obligations already
imposed on members' clubs before
the rules came into existence and
did not give rise to any new duty,
with the result that the rules as
such did not qualify the general
common law rule that individual
members could not sue a club to
which they belonged.
The plaintiff appealed. The Court
of Appeal (May, Nourse and Woolf
L J J ) held that in so far as the rules
of the club provided that two of its
officers were to be responsible in
law for the conduct of the club
then, in the absence of an express
provision that the officers were to
be responsible for the condition of
the club premises, the rules did not
give rise to a duty of care towards
individual members to maintain the
club premises in a reasonable state
of safety and repair and did not
qualify the general common law
rule that there was no liability
between a club or its members on
the one hand and individual mem-
bers on the other. Accordingly the
plaintiff's claim failed and his
appeal was dismissed.
The issue of liability in negligence
of members of a private club arose
in the Irish case of
Murphy -v-
Roche (No. 2)
[1987] IR 656. There,
the plaintiff was a member of an
unincorporated members' club
which was managed by a com-
mittee which worked without re-
numeration.
While attending a dance at the
club premises, to which he had paid
an admission fee, the plaintiff was
injured as a result of a fall which he
attributed to the negligence of the
persons who organised and ran the
dance. The monies collected for
admission to the dance were
applied to the general purposes of
the club. The plaintiff commenced
proceedings for damages against
the defendants as representing the
club. The defendants were the
trustees of the club in whom its
property was vested and the
plaintiff did not attribute any per-
sonal responsibility for negligence
to any of them. The defendants
disputed the plaintiff's claim on the
grounds,
inter alia,
that the plaintiff
as a member of the club could not
maintain an action against the club.
Gannon J. held that the club had
no separate legal character distinct
from its members. He held that the
duty, upon which the plaintiff's
action was founded, to observe
suitable standards of care in the
organisation and running of the
dance, was a duty shared equally
by all the members of the club, in-
cluding the plaintiff. Further, the
only liability which might attach to
the club for breach of that duty was
the vacarious liability of all the
members, including the plaintiff, as
principals, for the wrongful acts or
defaults of their agent, whether a
member or servant of the club.
Gannon J. held that the plaintiff's
contribution to the admission
receipts did not avoid his share of
the responsibility for observing
suitable standards of care. Accord-
ingly, Gannon J. held that the
plaintiff's action was not main-
tainable at law.
Raymond Byrne and William
Binchy in their
Review of Irish Law
1987
at pp 336-338 analyse the
decision of Gannon J. in
Murphy -
v- Roche.
The authors comment
that Gannon J ' s analysis of the
principle issue is somewhat subtle.
The rule that in general there is no
liability at common law between a
club or its members on the one
hand and individual members on
the other does give rise to con-
siderable difficulty and practi-
tioners should be aware of the
issues involved.
T H E PROBA T I ON A N D .
WEL FARE SERV I CE
The Report of the Probation and
Welfare Service
with statistics for
the year 1988 (PI 6843, price
£3.10) recently published by the
Stationery Office makes interesting
reading. The principal function of
the Probation and Welfare Service
is to supervise offenders in the
community with the specific in-
tention of reducing offending be-
haviour and offering established
programmes of supervision which
enable offenders to take responsi-
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