Palmer v Cornwall County Council – school negligence claim

Court of Appeal decisions concerning personal injury compensation claims arising 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 was a straightforward negligence claim.

The accident happened during a lunch break. I’m not sure what the food is like Newquay Tretherras School in Cornwall but it appears that after lunch at least one of the pupils reverted to hunter gatherer mode and cunningly laid some bait for the seagulls which are plentiful in the area. Having lured the prey to the ground he did nothing more sophisticated than hurl stones at them. Unfortunately he hit a fellow year 9 pupil (3rd year senior for those still using old money) in the eye causing a serious injury.

The Court of Appeal reversed the trial judge’s finding that the pupils were adequately supervised. The arrangement was that years 7 & 8 were on a field about the size of football pitch, the years 9 & 1o on another similar sized field. There were “about 300″ children on the two fields. There was one supervisor to cover both fields. She kept her eye mainly on the younger pupils and would glance occasionally over at the older children.

The trial judge’s finding of adequate supervision was described as “perverse”

If there were 300 pupils out on the field at the time of incident, of which it would seem clear that well over half would be years 7 and 8, it is doubtful whether two supervisors concentrating 100% on those age groups would have been sufficient. Certainly to ask one supervisor to supervise well over 150 year 7 and 8 pupils was quite inappropriate and, since that led to that one supervisor only being able to glance occasionally at years 9 and 10, that left those age groups effectively unsupervised.

The court rejected an argument that even with adequate supervision the incident would have happened anyway so the school was negligent and the negligence was causative of the injuries. The case was referred back for a damages assessment.

I’m not sure how this case got through the Court of Appeal’s mediation scheme. It’s not like the County Council got a definitive ruling on supervisor to pupil ratios, Lord Justice Waller inevitably said

In this area it is not possible to say that a certain ratio must be adhered to in each and every case; all must depend on the circumstances and the assessment of risks.

Furthermore the writing was on the wall for the negligence appeal when Lady Justice Smith, in granting leave to appeal, described the Recorder’s finding on supervision “perverse”. It would be interesting to know if a mediator was ever considered and the reasons for not using one.

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