Ambulance chasers 0 - Common sense 1

Result! A woman who suffered appalling injuries after diving into a neighbour's pool has lost her case against them. In a previous post I suggested that it was reasonable to expect children to know that roses had thorns. Following the same line of reasoning, the judge in this case has decided that it's reasonable to expect adults to know that diving into swimming pools is potentially dangerous.

I said previously that these cases are brought under the common law tort of negligence. Although the judge in the pool case seems to have applied the same tests, this case was apparently brought under something called the Occupiers' Liability Act. I'm not familiar with this myself but it's gratifying that despite (or perhaps because) some of this stuff has now been written down by parliament, no liability was found.

We need a few more judges to produce sensible rulings like this and a few more people prepared to defend themselves against Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne. Our local parish council is apparently agonising over the risks of taking ownership of a pond, despite no such risks having bothered the existing and previous owners for however many centuries this pond has been in existence. Perhaps this latest ruling will persuade them to stop being such a bunch of uber-risk-averse so and so's. But whether it does or not, it's a move in the right direction. Well done m'lud.

PS None of the above should be taken to sound like rejoicing at somebody else's suffering and one's heart goes out to the lady in question. It's just that we need to get a grip and get out of this "where there's blame there's a claim" culture. Unfortunately, as the judge decided in this case, the blame often lies with no one but the claimant themselves. It is to be hoped that the claimant's lawyers (and not the claimant herself) got stung with a hefty bill for the defence's costs...a case of pour encourager les autres, one hopes. That rare occasion when I'm in favour of outrageous legal fees.