Muir v Glasgow Corporation,1943 SC(HL) 3
Citation:Muir v Glasgow Corporation,1943 SC(HL) 3
Rule of thumb:Do children have to be kept under control when out on adventure trips, excursions etc or does occupier’s liability place a high threshold on the occupier’s of premises? Children have to be kept under control and occupier’s have a low duty of care. In order to prove legal liability then a clear & specific law has to be relied upon.
Background facts:
The basic facts were that there was a deluge of rain during a school trip and a big group of children went into a café to get shelter. A child ran into a waitress who spilt hot tea over them to their serious injury. The cafe changed their procedures afterwards to make them more robust.
Parties argued:
The café argued that a big group of children running wild coming into their café and running into a waitress was not their fault. The child argued that the cafe should have had more measures in place to stop this such as floor-lines & signage etc.
Judgment:
The Court held that this was not foreseeable and that this was reasonably unpreventable, in spite of the café changing process afterwards – it would have been too much to ask them to foresee this. The Court held that where a system of work is changed after an accident it is not proof of liability, however, it does raise the presumption that if they thought of this now, then why had they not thought of this before. The Court further held that there were no regulations in place etc requiring the café to do this so they could not be held liable for this.
Ratio-decidendi:
"The standard of foresight of the reasonable man is, in one sense, an impersonal test. It eliminates the personal equation and is independent of the idiosyncrasies of the particular person whose conduct is in question. Some persons are by nature unduly timorous and imagine every path beset with lions. Others, of more robust temperament, fail to foresee or nonchalantly disregard even the most obvious dangers. The reasonable man is presumed to be free both from over-apprehension and from over-confidence, but there is a sense in which the standard of care of the reasonable man involves in its application a subjective element", Lord MacMillan
‘Legal liability is limited to those consequences of our acts which a reasonable man of ordinary intelligence and experience so acting would have in contemplation... The standard of foresight of the reasonable man is, in one sense, an impersonal test. It eliminates the personal equation and is independent of the idiosyncrasies of the particular person whose conduct is in question. Some persons are by nature unduly timorous and imagine every path beset with lions. Others, of more robust temperament, fail to foresee or nonchalantly disregard even the most obvious dangers. The reasonable man is presumed to be free both from over-apprehension and from over-confidence, but there is a sense in which the standard of care of the reasonable man involves in its application a subjective element’, Lord MacMillan, ‘I do not ignore or dispute that the simple principle, like other simple principles, may be subject to limitations which have limited, or perhaps, sometimes obscured, its correct application, or that the principle may have come into apparent conflict with prevalent rules in other spheres of law. It may be possible to put the principle of negligence in a nutshell, but difficult to keep it there, but all this may, I think, be disregarded in deciding the present appeal... I may observe that in case of “invitation” the duty has most commonly referred to the structural condition of the premises...’, Lord McMillan
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.