Damages awarded after 2 boy's accident in a municipal recreation ground were increased from £1,500 to £3,193 by the Court of Appeal at Home last month.
The £1,500 was awarded by Mr. Commissioner Proctor at Manchester Civil Assizes to Peter Douglas Coates and his father, Richard D. Coates, e of Burnley, for injury tothe boy Peter, who was three years old at the time.
"The child was being given a ride by a companion named Booth down a slide in the Rawtenstall Corporation's amusement ground for children at Crawshawbooth, They struck chain' which had been fastened round a chute and ought not to have been there, and Peter Coates's right leg was broken.
After leaving hospital he developed infantile paralysis in his leg, and the use of the limb had been much impaired, Rawtenstall Corporation, against whom the damages were awarded, now appealed on the ground that they were not liable, and Peter Coates and his father cross appealed, saying that the damages were inadequate. The ground of the Corporation's appeal was that Peter Coates, being only three years old, was neither an "invitee" nor a "licensee" to the amusement ground, but was in law a trespasser, "Hidden Trap"
Mr. Wilfrid Clothier, K.C., for the Corporation, contended that the chain did not constitute a "hidden trap" or danger, of which the Council knew, or ought to have known.
The chain he said, was in itself innocuous and not a dangerous article.
Lord Justice Slesser: I suppose gun-powder is an innocuous article if a match is not put to it.
Mr. Clothier remarked that there had never been a case in which it had been held that a man was liable because he had left about on his land, to which children had access, an article such as a chain or stick or stone which had no inherent q ity of danger.
Lord Justice Slesser: The evidence of the caretaker is that he knew there was the danger of some boy, who had seen the chains used for locking up the chute imitating what had been done with a chain he found lying about, When this chain was put across the chute it became a "trap." I fail to_see any law in it. It is entirely a question of fact
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.