Dr Whiteson did not give evidence. He submitted that the Board would presumably owe the same duty to boxers who came from abroad to box and persons who were not yet boxers, and perhaps not even born, when the rules were made. In these circumstances there is no close proximity between the services and the general public. Without so doing, however, the Judge concluded that for some reason no thought was given to the practicality of introducing at the ringside what he found had been a standard response, where the presence of sub-dural bleeding was known or suspected, since at least 1980. Mr Watson was one of a defined number of boxing members of the Board. [4] After recovering consciousness, he sued the BBBC, arguing that because they laid down the rules governing professional boxing that ensured his safety, they owed him a duty of care and should have ensured that he was properly and immediately treated. It is not necessary for a supposed tortfeasor to have created the danger himself. 84. ii) to identify any categories of cases in which these principles have given rise to a duty of care, or conversely where they have not done so. Watson & British Boxing Board Of Control Ltd & Anor - Casemine This submission involves considering the timing of events and the Judge's findings in relation to the impact of these on causation. At the North Middlesex Hospital he was intubated, that is an endotrachael tube was inserted, and he was given oxygen. Negligence and Duty of Care in Sport - JNP Legal Watson v British Boxing Board of Control - Wiley Online Library . This sequence can result in cumulative damage to the brain, leading sooner or later to death. He was also given an injection of Manitol, a diuretic that can have the effect of reducing swelling of the brain. Treatment that should have been provided at the ringside. [2] He was given no oxygen, and first sent to a hospital which lacked a neurosurgery unit. This care was insufficient, and as such Watson was in a coma for 40 days, and spent 6 years in a wheelchair. The doctors who were actually present were not aware of the desirability of immediate resuscitation of a victim with a brain haemorrhage. The Board professes - I do not for one moment question its sincerity - its lively interest in his safety. 113. "If the protocol had been in place, and Dr Shapiro had been required to go straight to the ring, he would have begun the necessary procedures within a minute or two of the collapse and so by 23.00. ii) The Board assumed responsibility for determining the details of the medical care and facilities which would be provided by way of immediate treatment of those who received personal injuries while taking part in the activity. On a preliminary issue the House of Lords held that the classification society had no duty of care to the cargo owners. The setting of rules could be akin to the giving of advice and thus had an indirect influence on the occurrence of the injury. Hearn refuses to give up fight after Benn v Eubank thrown into chaos by Click here to remove this judgment from your profile. agreed with Hobhouse L.J. The wall had remained standing because the architect employed in supervising the building works had failed to advise that it was dangerous and should be demolished. Stabilise the patient's condition by maintaining an air way and maintaining ventilation. The doctor does not, by examining the applicant, come under any general duty of medical care to the applicant. This seems to me to be, on its face, an example par excellence of a situation where the law will regard the professional as owing a duty of care to a third party as well as his own employer.". Administrative, Personal Injury, Negligence, Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.135634. I do not believe there is any difference in principle between giving advice about safety and laying down rules to provide for safety. Lord Steyn stated:-, "Since the decision in Dorset Yacht Co. v The Home Office [1970] AC 1004, it has been settled law that the elements of foreseeability and proximity as well as considerations of fairness, justice and reasonableness are relevant to all cases whatever the nature of the harm sustained by the plaintiff..". Lord Mustill reached the same conclusion in R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 at p.265, where he gave the following description of professional boxing: "For money, not recreation or personal improvement, each boxer tries to hurt the opponent more than he is hurt himself, and aims to end the contest prematurely by inflicting a brain injury serious enough to make the opponent unconscious, or temporarily by impairing his central nervous system through a blow to the midriff, or cutting his skin to a degree which would ordinarily be well within the scope of Section 20. Test. There is no question but that anyone with the appropriate expertise would have advised such a system whatever reservations they may have had, as had Professor Teasdale, about its ultimate utility.". These cases establish that where A advises B as to action to be taken which will directly and foreseeably affect the safety or well-being of C, a situation of sufficient proximity exists to found a duty of care on the part of A towards C. Whether in fact such a duty arises will depend upon the facts of the individual case and, in particular, upon whether such a duty of care would cut across any statutory scheme pursuant to which the advice was given. Effects are usually short-lived and do not produce lasting damage. He was held at North Middlesex Hospital until 23.55 to ensure that he was stabilised for the onward journey, and then taken to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The defendant company had a policy for achieving responsible gambling, . 72. The movement of the brain within the skull may rupture veins, or more rarely an artery, inside the head leading to bleeding which builds up into a blood clot or haematoma. The Judge referred (Transcript p.17) to the question of whether to attach a duty of care to the facts of the present case would be an acceptable incremental extension of established liabilities, or too long a step. In such a case the authority running the hospital is under a duty to those whom it admits to exercise reasonable care in the way it runs it: see Gold v Essex County Council [1942] 2 K.B. Hobhouse L.J. In his Witness Statement Mr John Morris, General Secretary of the Board said "The Board believes as I do, that the safety of the boxers is of great importance and takes precedence over commercial and other interests". In delivering the leading speech Lord Browne-Wilkinson observed at p.739: "The question whether there is such a common law duty and if so its ambit, must be profoundly influenced by the statutory framework within which the acts complained of were done.". It seems to me that, but for the intervention of the Board, the promoter would probably owe a common law duty to the boxer to make reasonable provision for the immediate treatment of his injuries. about 23.01. He distinguished the fire and police `rescue' cases on the ground that: "This was not a case of general reliance, but specific reliance. Apart from issues of statutory duty, the question arose in each group of cases whether (i) the local authorities owed, at common law, a duty of care to the children when considering their needs and (ii) whether professionals advising on the needs of children owed a duty of care to those children which, if broken, rendered the local authorities vicariously liable. If Mr Watson has no remedy against the Board, he has no remedy at all. 15. Michael Watson MBE, born 15 March 1965, is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1984-1991. 62. Where a patient is brought unconscious to hospital as a result of intra-cranial bleeding, the practice is first to apply a process described as resuscitation or stabilisation. Mr Watson belonged to a class which was within the contemplation of the Board. In the subsequent action for personal injuries, this Court held that the ambulance service had been in breach of a duty of care in failing to arrive promptly. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, who noted that the BBBC had a duty not only to ensure that injuries did not occur, but that injuries were properly treated. In the leading speech Lord Slynn advanced the following statement of principle at pp.790-1: "As to the first question, it is long and well-established, now elementary, that persons exercising a particular skill or profession may owe a duty of care in the performance to people who it can be foreseen will be injured if due skill and care are not exercised, and if injury or damage can be shown to have been caused by the lack of care. She claimed in negligence and occupiers liability. They support the proposition that the act of undertaking to cater for the medical needs of a victim of illness or injury will generally carry with it the duty to exercise reasonable care in addressing those needs. at p.258 as follows: "The third defendants are a trading company incorporated under the companies Acts. That, however, did not prove to be the position. There an operation was carried out to evacuate a sub-dural haematoma. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[320,100],'swarb_co_uk-medrectangle-3','ezslot_5',114,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-swarb_co_uk-medrectangle-3-0'); Cited by: Cited Binod Sutradhar v Natural Environment Research Council CA 20-Feb-2004 The defendant council had carried out research into a water supply in India in the 1980s. Next the Board argued that the presence of an ambulance, with resuscitation equipment, should have satisfied the Judge that this aspect of medical care was adequately provided. Next the Board attacked the implicit finding of the Judge that the Rules should have required the doctor to enter the ring as soon as a boxer was counted out or deemed unfit to defend himself. He could have been treated on the spot, and had an endotrachael tube inserted, been ventilated and thereafter transferred directly to a Neurosurgical Unit where CT scan facilities were available. On 21st September 1991 Michael Watson fought Chris Eubank for the World Boxing Organisation Super-Middleweight title at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in London. Negligence in Public Policy Case Summaries - LawTeacher.net 105. I can summarise the position as follows. In the second place it was not practical to use this equipment while the ambulance was on the move. 108. i) that it owed no duty of care to Mr Watson; ii) that if it owed the duty alleged, it committed no breach; and. However, should this not be so, then the boxer's gumshield should be removed, an adequate airway established and the boxer put on his left side so that should he fit or vomit he will not obstruct his airway. [2001] QB 1134 was a case of the Court of Appeal of England There are a number of problems with this submission. The Board's authority is essentially based upon the consent of the boxing world. Only full case reports are accepted in court. d) The rule that a boxer must be medically examined before every contest. The Claimant would have been resuscitated within a few minutes of 23.00 and in St. Bartholomews by 23.45 at the latest. Of these, the vast majority were semi-professional. He rejected it, holding that the standard to be expected of an ambulance dealing with every kind of medical emergency was not the same as the standard to be expected from those making provision for a particular and serious risk which was one of a limited number likely to arise. "Proximity" is, no doubt, a convenient expression as long as it is realised that it is no more than a label which embraces not a definable concept but merely a description of circumstances from which pragmatically, the courts conclude that a duty of care exists.". 99. There was chaos in and outside the ring and seven minutes elapsed before he was examined by one of the doctors who were in attendance. "The Board does not create the danger. The BBBC had a series of rules on the medical coverage needed for boxing matches, which required two doctors to be present at all times. * The Board failed to ensure that those running the contest knew which hospitals in the vicinity had a neurosurgical capability. (Rule 8.1). 10. I turn to the distinctive features of this case. This decision turned, essentially, on considerations of policy in relation to the role of a classification society in the context of the complex arrangements for sharing, limiting and insuring the risks inherent in carriage of goods by sea. There is no doubt that once the relationship of doctor and patient or hospital authority and admitted patient exists, the doctor or the hospital owe a duty to take reasonable care to effect a cure, not merely to prevent further harm. The propeller was mismatched to the gearbox. The evidence of the expert witnesses called on behalf of Mr Watson was that the first ten minutes after loss of consciousness were critical. change. 57. In 1990 Mr Watson had been involved in litigation with his manager, in which the Board had filed an Affidavit. I see no reason why the rules should not have contained the provision suggested by the Judge. First he submitted that the Board exercises a public function which it has assumed for the public good. He inferred that professional boxers would be unlikely to have an innate or well informed concern about safety. If he volunteers his assistance, his only duty as a matter of law is not to make the victim's condition worse. The members of the Board are those who are involved in professional boxing. The L.A.S. Boxing is the only sport where this is the object of the exercise. 98. (pp.27-8). Serious brain damage such as that suffered by Mr Watson, though happily an uncommon consequence of a boxing injury, represented the most serious risk posed by the sport and one that required to be addressed. 1. In addition to the two doctors required by the rules, there was, on the direction of the Board, a third medical officer present. He had in fact sustained a brain haemorrhage and, after returning to his corner, he lapsed into unconsciousness on his stool. (Compare also Clay v AJ Crump & Sons Ltd [1964] 1 QB 533 in which an architect had complete control over whether a dangerous wall was left standing and Watson v British Boxing Board of Control Ltd [2001] QB 1134 in which the Board had control over the medical services provided at boxing matches.) He contended that they were in breach of this duty with the consequence that he did not receive the immediate medical attention at the ringside that his condition required. 97. An ambulance should be on site from the start of the tournament, possibly with a crew of trained para-medics. The head teacher, being responsible for the school, himself comes under a duty of care to exercise the reasonable skills of a headmaster in relation to such steps as a reasonable teacher would consider appropriate to try to deal with such under-performance. This care was insufficient, and as such Watson was in a coma for 40 days, and spent 6 years in a wheelchair. There are many instances of this. The promoters and the boxers do not themselves address considerations of safety. A boxer who suffered brain damage following a title fight in London alleged that the Board which regulates boxing had been negligent in not providing a better level of ringside medical care. In particular they are boxers. That phrase can be misleading in that it can suggest that the professional person must knowingly and deliberately accept responsibility. 2. 's examination of the ship, and that the cargo owners simply relied on the undertakings of the shipowners, it is in my view impossible to force the present set of facts into even the most expansive view of the doctrine of voluntary assumption of responsibility.". deprecated the introduction of tests such as `proximity' and `fair just and reasonable' in a situation where it was reasonably foreseeable that a failure to exercise reasonable care would cause personal injury: "They also illustrate the dangers of substituting for clear criteria, criteria which are incapable of precise definition and involve what can only be described as an element of subjective assessment by the Court: such ultimately subjective assessments tend inevitably to lead to uncertainty and anomaly which can be avoided by a more principled approach". It examines the ability of insurers to influence legislation relevant to the tort system. the concern of the Board for the physical safety of boxers is reflected in many of the Board's rules and regulations.
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