Court Decides Responsibility Of Borough Council Lord Justice Slesser postulated a problem in the Court of Appeal dur-ug a case which involved the liabili of a Borough Council to safeguard children paddling in the pond of London park from the risk of treading on broken glass.
"Suppose," he asked, "there had been a parcel of adders in the pond; what would have been the position of the local authority if one of them bit a child, and a lawsuit resulted?"
Mr. N. Macaskie, x.c. (for the Council)—It would have been on: duty to remove them if we knew they were there. But, to borrow a reference from Plutarch, if there were the possibility of an adder having been dropped from the skies by an eagle, the case would be different "Then suppose," asked Lord Justice "you have, as in Richmond stags which are known to be us at certain times of the not at others, and you take no precautions, would it be any defence to say they e not dangerous all the time, but only in fits and starts?
Mr, Macaskie—It I took no precautions it might very well be I should be held liable for negligence, The Court dismissed an appeal by Fulham Borough Council, and upheld ar award by Mr. Justice Greaves-Lord, in the King's Bench Division, of £69 10s. 6d. to Albert Ellis, aged 9, and his father, of Rowallan-road, Fulham, in respect of an injury to the boy, who stepped on a piece of glass hile paddling in a pond in Bishop's Park, Fulham, and severed a tendon in his big toe.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.