“Council liable for children's injuries from abandoned boat despite unforeseeable accident method”
Sutton LBC left an abandoned boat on council land for two years despite knowing children played on it. Two 14-year-old boys jacked up the boat to repair it, but it fell and seriously injured one boy. The council argued the specific manner of injury was unforeseeable.
Whether a defendant in negligence is liable when the type of harm is foreseeable but the precise manner in which it occurs is not reasonably foreseeable.
The House of Lords held the council liable. Where the type of harm is reasonably foreseeable, a defendant cannot escape liability merely because the precise manner of its occurrence was not foreseeable.
This case clarified the test for remoteness in negligence, emphasizing that liability extends to all reasonably foreseeable types of harm regardless of the specific causal mechanism.
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OSCOLA Citation
Jolley v Sutton London Borough Council [2000] UKHL 31, [2000] 1 WLR 1082
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