Tort Law

Bolton v. Stone

[1951] AC 850

Facts

• Bolton v. Stone was the House of Lords appeal arising from the same cricket accident considered in Stone v. Bolton.
• Miss Stone was struck by a cricket ball while standing on a public road outside Cheetham Cricket Club.
• The batsman was nearly one hundred yards from the place where she stood.
• The effective height of the boundary fence above the playing field was approximately seventeen feet.
• Cricket had been played at the ground for around ninety years.
• Evidence suggested that balls had crossed the boundary only a handful of times during approximately thirty years.
• No person on the highway had previously been proved to have suffered injury.
• The trial judge held that the risk was so small that the club had acted reasonably.
• The Court of Appeal reversed and found the club negligent.
• The cricket club appealed to the House of Lords.

• Whether every foreseeable possibility requires preventive action.
• Whether the very low probability of a cricket ball striking someone outside the ground established breach.
• How the probability of injury should be balanced against the seriousness of harm and burden of precautions.

• Reasonable foreseeability is necessary but does not automatically establish negligence.
• A reasonable person considers the magnitude of the risk, including:
o the probability that harm will occur;
o the seriousness of the possible injury;
o the cost and practicality of precautions; and
o the social value of the activity.
• A risk may be foreseeable in the sense that it is imaginable or physically possible, yet be so extremely unlikely that a reasonable person would not take additional precautions.
• The standard is not that of a person who eliminates every conceivable danger.
• A small probability may nevertheless require action where:
o potential harm is catastrophic; and
o prevention is simple and inexpensive.
• The question is always fact-sensitive.

• The House of Lords accepted that it was possible for balls to leave the ground.
• However, the evidence demonstrated extraordinary rarity.
• Cricket had been played there for decades without personal injury outside the ground.
• Only a very small number of balls had crossed the boundary.
• The distance and effective fence height made the particular accident exceptional.
• The Court distinguished between:
o foreseeing that an event could theoretically happen; and
o concluding that reasonable care requires precautions against it.
• The trial judge was entitled to find that the probability of injury was extremely small.
• Additional protection might have required:
o a substantially higher fence;
o extensive netting;
o relocation of the pitch; or
o discontinuation of cricket.
• The club had not ignored a recurring or substantial danger.
• The law did not require expensive or disruptive measures against a risk that practical experience showed to be negligible.
• The House of Lords therefore treated the club’s arrangements as reasonable.
• The judgment did not establish that low-probability risks are always irrelevant.
• It held that, on these particular facts, the likelihood was so slight that no breach occurred.

• The House of Lords allowed the cricket club’s appeal.
• The theoretical possibility of injury was reasonably foreseeable, but the probability was exceptionally low.
• A reasonable person could properly disregard that risk.
• The club had therefore not breached its duty of care.