Torts - Cases, Principles, and Institutions Fifth Edition, 2016a

Witt & Tani, TCPI 4. Negligence Standard
1. Negligence Basics
Stone v. Bolton, [1950] 1 K.B. 201 (C.A.)
On August 9, 1947, the plaintiff, Miss Bessie Stone, of 10, Beckenham Road, Cheetham,
near Manchester, had just stepped from her garden gateway on to the pavement of the highway
when she was struck on the head by a cricket ball and suffered injury. The ball had been driven
by a player of a visiting team over the fence or hoarding surrounding the Cheetham Cricket Club
ground, which at its northern boundary abuts on to the Beckenham Road. The said ground had
been in use as a cricket club for some 80 to 90 years [considerably longer than Beckenham Road
had existed]. The fence or hoarding surrounding it was 12 feet high and at the northern boundary,
owing to a rise in the ground, was 17 feet above the level of the wicket. . . . The distance from the
southern wicket to the northern boundary fence was estimated to be 78 yards. The “hit” in
question was described by a member of the club with long experience as “quite the biggest seen
on that ground,” but evidence was adduced at the trial that on some six to ten occasions cricket
balls had been hit over the fence into the road in the past 30 years.
The plaintiff sued the defendants, as representing all the members of the club, for damages
for personal injuries, alleging that the defendants were negligent. . . . The case came on for
hearing before Oliver J. at Manchester Assizes on December 20, 1948, and the learned judge
dismissed the claim. [The plaintiff appealed.]
JENKINS L.J. . . . [L]egitimate as the playing of cricket may be, a cricket ball hit out of the
ground into a public highway is obviously capable of doing serious harm to anyone using the
highway who may happen to be in its course, and I see no justification for holding the defendants
entitled to subject people in Beckenham Road to any reasonably foreseeable risk of injury in this
way. Accordingly, I am of opinion that the defendants were under a duty to prevent balls being hit
into Beckenham Road so far as there was any reasonably foreseeable risk of this happening. The
case as regards to negligence, therefore, seems to me to resolve itself into the question whether,
with the wickets sited as they were, and the fence at the Beckenham Road end as it was, on
August 9, 1947, the hitting into Beckenham Road of the ball which struck and injured the plaintiff
was the realization of a reasonably foreseeable risk, or was in the nature of an unprecedented
occurrence which the defendants could not reasonably have foreseen.
On the evidence this question seems to me to admit of only one answer. Balls had been
hit into Beckenham Road before. It is true this had happened only at rare intervals, perhaps no
more than six times in thirty seasons. But it was known from practical experience to be an actual
possibility in the conditions in which matches were customarily played on the ground from about
1910 onwards, that is to say, with the wickets sited substantially as they were, and the fence at the
Beckenham Road end, I gather, exactly as it was as regards height and position on August 9,
1947. What had happened several times before could, as it seems to me, reasonably be expected
to happen again sooner or later. It was not likely to happen often, but it was certainly likely to
happen again in time. When or how often it would happen again no one could tell, as this would
depend on the strength of the batsmen playing on the ground (including visitors about whose
capacity the defendants might know nothing) and the efficiency or otherwise of the bowlers. In
my opinion, therefore, the hitting out of the ground of the ball which struck and injured the
plaintiff was a realization of a reasonably foreseeable risk, which because it could reasonably be
foreseen, the defendants were under a duty to prevent.
159