Smoldon v Whitworth

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
Judgment Date19 April 1996
Date19 April 1996
CourtQueen's Bench Division

Queen's Bench Division

Before Mr Justice Curtis

Smoldon
and
Whitworth and Another

Sport - referee - duty of care to rugby players

Referee has duty of care to players

A referee who oversaw a colts rugby match owed a duty of care in negligence to ensure that scrummages did not collapse dangerously.

Mr Justice Curtis so held in the Queen's Bench Division when refusing the application of Benjamin Roger Smoldon for damages for negligence against Thomas Whitworth, an opposing player, arising from his conduct while playing in a rugby match, but in granting the plaintiff's application for damages against Michael Nolan for breach of his duties as referee of the match.

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8 cases
  • R v Myers
    • United Kingdom
    • House of Lords
    • 24 July 1997
    ...dated April 3, 1996 of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division (Lord Justice Russell, Mrs Justice Bracewell and Judge Stroyan, QC) (The Times April 23, 1996; (1996) 2 Cr App R 335) whereby the court dismissed Myers' appeal against her conviction for murder, for which she was sentenced at the......
  • Chittock v Woodbridge School
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 26 June 2002
    ...the resort, backed, where necessary, by appropriate discipline to safeguard him and others from reasonably foreseeable harm. See Smoldon v. Whitworth & Nolan, per Lord Bingham CJ, at P139. 19 The Judge, in the following passage in his judgment, broadly adopted the approach indicated in thos......
  • Caldwell v Maguire
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 27 June 2001
    ...before the race in the relative calm of the workshop. 20 The last, and the most important of the cases considered by Holland J, is Smoldon v Whitworth (1997) ELR 249. In that case the claimant sued another player and a referee at a rugby match in which he was badly injured when the scrum co......
  • Smoldon v Whitworth
    • United Kingdom
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 17 December 1996
    ...breach of duty. The Court of Appeal so held, dismissing an appeal by the second defendant, Michael Nolan, from Mr Justice Curtis (The Times April 23, 1996) who had made a finding of liability against him in respect of his refereeing of an under-19 colts match on October 19, 1991, in which t......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
2 books & journal articles
  • The Politics of Privatization in the Malaysian Health Care System.
    • Singapore
    • Contemporary Southeast Asia Vol. 22 No. 2, August 2000
    • 1 August 2000
    ...Scarpaci, op. cit., pp. 15-18. (35.) Business Times, 11 January 1992; and Malaysia, Sixth Malaysia Plan, p. 350. (36.) New Straits Times, 23 April 1996. (37.) New Straits Times, 16 June (38.) Malaysia, Seventh Malaysia Plan, p. 72. (39.) New Straits Times, 10 October, and 29 October 1996. (......
  • The role of pension schemes in recruitment and motivation. Some survey evidence
    • United Kingdom
    • Emerald Employee Relations No. 19-2, April 1997
    • 1 April 1997
    ...BarclaysBank) have involved the prohibition of new employees from membership of thelong-established final salary scheme (Financial Times, 23 April 1996).Moves such as these may be founded on short-term perspectives in tworespects. One of these is cost containment or reduction, as the exampl......

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