“Cricket club not liable for freak accident involving ball hit into street”
Miss Stone was standing on a highway outside her home when struck by a cricket ball hit from the Cheetham Cricket Club ground approximately 100 yards away. Evidence showed that balls had been hit out of the ground only about 6 times in 30 years, despite thousands of matches played.
Whether defendants owed a duty of care and breached that duty when the risk of injury was extremely remote, and what standard should apply to determine reasonable foreseeability in negligence.
The House of Lords held that the cricket club was not liable. The risk of injury was so small that a reasonable person would not have anticipated it, and the defendants had not breached their duty of care.
This case established the fundamental principle that negligence liability requires reasonable foreseeability, not just possibility, of harm. It remains the leading authority on the standard for establishing duty of care in low-probability risk scenarios.
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OSCOLA Citation
Bolton v Stone [1951] AC 850 (HL)
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