A lunchtime supervisor at a secondary school failed in her attempt to recover compensation for personal injuries caused by a Year 9 child playing tag*. The Court of Appeal case is Orchard v Lee. The facts of this case were stated by Waller LJ :
At about 1.40 pm on 27th January 2004 the respondent (SL) a thirteen and three- quarters year old boy was playing tag with another thirteen and a half year old boy (LR), originally the second defendant to the proceedings. They were playing in the courtyard and part of a walkway which was the social area for their age group when, running backwards and taunting LR, SL ran into the appellant who was working as a lunchtime assistant supervisor at the school. The back of his head came into contact with the appellant’s cheek and although at first any injury seemed slight it has developed and her injuries are quite serious.
The lunchtime supervisor of course wins everyone’s sympathy. Anybody remotely connected with staff of a secondary school will know how difficult and often thankless the job can be. Ms Orchard seems to have suffered a nasty injury during the course of her employment through no fault of her own. Maybe in an ideal world she would automatically receive compensation. However somebody always has to foot the bill. Our system of course requires fault to be established.
Waller LJ gave the leading judgment and held that the boys were not liable for Ms Orchard’s injuries. He said
I would summarise the position in this way. It is not in issue that SL owed a duty of care. But if there is to be found a breach of that duty of care it would have to be established that SL, a 13 year old, was running about and playing tag in a way which was to a significant degree outside the norm for 13 year olds. The answer to that question can be assisted by considering whether SL was conducting himself in the way he played tag in a manner in which a 13 year old boy would reasonably foresee there was likely to be injury beyond that normally occurring while a game of tag was in progress.
The judge concluded that nothing that SL was doing was outside the normal behaviour for such a child playing such a game, consequently he was not liable.
Coles Miller acted for the appellant and Plexus acted for the respondent.
See also Palmer v Cornwall County Council for negligence claim against a school.
* Of no particular relevance Wikipedia can also add “tick” to the list of “also known as …” because that is what we called it.
[...] out of accidents at school are after all just like buses, none for ages then two at once. After Orchard v Lee we now have Palmer v Cornwall County Council which by the time it got before the Court of Appeal [...]