British Jurist Exercises Rational Judgement

Judge strips boy of damages

Clare Dyer
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

A judge has stripped a schoolboy of a £4,250 damages award after his school argued that it would be "madness" to compensate him for breaking his arm after falling off a swing as he played Superman during a sports day at Chillerton country primary school near Newport.
Ryan Simonds, from Rookley, Isle of Wight, was given damages by a county court judge in March for the injury.

But, overturning the ruling that the school was negligent, Mr Justice Gross said at London's high court that if "word got out" the boy had won his case "the probability is sports days and other pleasurable sporting events will simply not take place ... Such events could easily become uninsurable, or at prohibitive cost."

And the fifth horseman, Absurdity, fell off his mount, and there was much amusement.