A fair approach

The Court of Appeal has just considered the responsibility for local authorities to ensure public liability insurance is in place for a public event. Peter Wake welcomes a sensible ruling that highlights the recent judicial approach to cases involving activities of wider social benefit.

In the recent case of Glaister v Appleby-in-Westmorland Town Council, decided in the Court of Appeal on 9 December 2009, the court considered the issue of whether a local authority had any duty to put in place public liability insurance for a public event in the absence of a ‘special relationship’ between the Town Council and the claimant.

The case came about after an event in June 2004 where the claimant was seriously injured by a horse at the Appleby Horse Fair. He was standing on a grass verge close to where horses were tethered. No-one knew who the horse belonged to, where it came from or how it had broken free.

The fair takes place annually and attracts several thousand travellers together with their horses and caravans. A large number of visitors congregate and the peak daily attendance is around 45,000. The Town Council encouraged visitors to the fair. There was no one body with exclusive control of the fair although there was a committee made up of, amongst others, members of the Town Council, Eden District Council, Cumbria County Council, Cumbria Police,  DEFRA and the RSPCA. It held meetings at about six month intervals before and after each year’s fair. Within these meetings, there were discussions about health and safety issues and the need for insurance.

When the case first came before the Court, the Judge held that it was fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty of care on the Town Council to see that insurance was in place because it was the body on whose land the primary site of the fair was situated. He was also of the opinion that the Town Council took the leading role in the committee and was better aware of the potential risks to safety in such an event. He found that the absence of such insurance meant that the claimant lost the remedy of suing a defendant that was appropriately insured.

The Town Council appealed successfully to the Court of Appeal. The Town Council was not the occupier of the land where the accident occurred and nor did it cause or direct the activities of the fair which took place beyond its own boundaries, hence it argued that there was no arguable basis for holding that it owed a duty of care to assume responsibility for those activities.

The Court rejected the idea that bodies which encourage attendance at public events undertake some responsibility in relation to them, thereby exposing themselves to legal liability for the negligence of other bodies participating in the event. As Lord Justice Toulson put it, “I do not see the justice of it and I am concerned that the fear of it is likely to act as a deterrent to those … who freely give their time and energies to the encouragement of such events. If that were to happen, the result would be an impoverishment of our community life”. There was no special relationship between the Town Council and the tens of thousands of members of the public (of whom the claimant was one) such that the claimant could properly expect the Town Council to safeguard him from harm, likely to result from want of care on its part.

This is a sensible judgment and a helpful one for local authorities. The reluctance of the Court of Appeal to widen the ambit of a local authority’s duty of care is encouraging and in line with the recent judicial approach to other cases involving activities of wider social benefit.

Importantly, it is also consistent with the intention of Parliament as laid down in the Compensation Act 2006. This Act was introduced, in part, to further inform how the laws of breach of statutory duty and of negligence operate in certain circumstances. In particular, as a result of section one of the Act, the courts are now able to take into account the possibility that 'desirable activities' may be curtailed or prevented by the fear of legal consequences and a finding of liability. These changes have been aimed at activities such as school trips which, though worthwhile and thought to be socially useful, were at risk of becoming increasingly rare owing to the perceived risk of litigation should an accident occur.

The Compensation Act was not in force at the time of Mr Glaister’s tragic accident and accordingly did not form any part of the arguments before the court. However, it is encouraging that the spirit of section one of the Act can be found in this judgment from the Court of Appeal which has a welcome air of reality and common sense.

Peter Wake is an associate in the local government team at Weightmans LLP. He can be contacted via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..