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The Sheriff Principal having resumed consideration of the cause, refuses the appeal and adheres to the sheriff's interlocutor complained of dated 11 February 2000; reserves meantime all questions of expenses.
This is an action of reparation brought by a school pupil who was injured as a result of an incident which took place in a classroom on 18 June 1996. He suffered a serious injury to his eye when it was struck by a rubber thrown by a fellow pupil. The pursuer avers that at the time the teacher had left the classroom. According to his averments the teacher was absent for some 10 minutes. The incident had occurred about five minutes after the teacher left the room.
In this action the pursuer seeks to recover damages from the defenders as Education Authority. Following debate the sheriff properly repelled the pursuer's first plea in law which purports to formulate a case of fault against the defenders, since it is clear that the case is based solely on their vicarious liability for the actings of the teacher who was in charge of the class. In that respect the pursuer's averments of fault directed against the teacher are as follows:
"The duty of a headmaster towards his pupils is said to be to take such care of them as a reasonably careful and prudent father would take of his own children. That standard is a helpful one when considering, for example, individual instructions given to individual children in a school. It would be very unwise to allow a six year old child to carry a kettle of boiling water - that type of instruction. But that standard when applied to an incident of horseplay in a school of 900 pupils is somewhat unrealistic if not unhelpful.
With those observations I respectfully agree. The concept of the "care of a reasonably prudent parent" relates to a standard of care and is a helpful practical guide as to what one may expect in cases, as Lane J put it, involving individual instructions to individual children. It should not, in my view, be invariably recited without regard to the circumstances in every case which involves the actings of a school teacher. In Wilkinson & Norrie in Parent and Child at para 8.24 it is stated that:
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