watson v british boxing board of control 2001 case

In Watson v British Boxing Board of Control (2000), the claimant was the famous professional boxer Michael Watson. 87. Mr Walker urged that a duty of care should not be imposed upon the Board because it was a non profit-making organisation and did not carry insurance. His comment that "it would only have added three minutes or so if he had waited until he was summoned" suggests to the contrary. The physical safety of boxers has always been a prime concern of the Board. While I do not agree with Mr Mackay's submission that Perrett v Collins provides a close analogy to the present case, I do find helpful the formulation of legal principle by Hobhouse L.J. Mr Usherwood, who alone of those involved had technical expertise, might be the only person who had been negligent. On his initiative a meeting took place with the Minister for Sport, two of Mr Hamlyn's colleagues, the Board's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Whiteson, and other board officials on 16th October 1991. Mr Watson should have been resuscitated on losing consciousness and then taken directly to the nearest hospital with a neurosurgical capability, which should have been standing by to operate without delay. The General Medical Council clearly states that a doctor must offer help when off-duty, if an emergency arises. Michael Watson stands to receive no more than 400,000 compensation The settlement of Watson's case against the British Boxing Board of Control, approved by the High Court in London. It shall be adequately lit, have an examination couch and possess hot and cold running water. 69. So may be an education officer performing the functions of a local education authority in regard to children with special educational needs. . Mr Usherwood had authority, under an Order made pursuant to the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to certify that the aircraft was fit to fly. Once this proximity exists, it ceases to be material what form the unreasonable conduct takes. 26. The following rules fall into this category: 3.8 The promoter shall procure that two doctors, who must be approved by the Area Medical Officer, attend at all promotions, one of whom must be seated at the ringside at all times during the contest. Mr Walker accepted that if Mr Watson had specifically asked the Board for advice as to the precautions that he ought to have in place for his fight, and the Board had given advice, the Board would have been under a duty to exercise care in giving that advice. That, however, did not prove to be the position. Boxing could not, however, have survived as a legal sport without strict regulation, one aim of which is to limit the injuries inflicted in the ring. Since 1929 the Board has been and continues to be the sole controlling body regulating professional boxing in the United Kingdom. Mr Watson brought an action against the Board. Watson v British Boxing Board of Control QB 1134 was a case of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales that established an exception to the defence of consent to trespass to the person and an extension of the duty of care expected in cases of negligence. Thus the necessary `proximity' was not made out. The background to this case was described by Hobhouse L.J. Mr Watson was one of a defined number of boxing members of the Board. Had he been asked in the period before the Eubank/Watson fight to advise on precautions in relation to the risk of serious head injury, he said that he would have given the same advice as Mr Hamlyn. 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. No reasonably competent educational psychologist, exercising reasonable skill and care, would have given such advice. More significantly, he would not be in a position to know whether the provisions that the Board required to be put in place represented all that it was reasonable to provide for his safety. Each area had a Chief Medical Officer, whose duties included the approval of doctors who wished to serve as medical officers at boxing matches. In my judgment there is a difference in principle between making Rules and giving advice, but it is not one which assists the Board. The Judge's findings in relation to breach of duty appear from the following passages in his judgment: "The standard response where the presence of subdural bleeding is known or suspected has been agreed since at least 1980, which is to intubate, ventilate, sedate, paralyse, and in Britain at least, to administer Manitol. 32. Therefore, it is likely that injuries arising from such play occur frequently but when do they occur as an act of negligence? 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. The most material part of this reads: "The Senior Medical Officer shall arrange for full and adequate resuscitation equipment (including intubation and ventilation equipment) to be available at the ringside of the venue. The fight had taken place in accordance with the rules of the British Boxing Board of Control Ltd., ("the Board"). 52. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Robinson v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police 2014, East Suffix River Catchment Board v Kent, Reeves v Commissioner of Police and more. had not been responsible for the claimant's asthma but it had caused the respiratory arrest and to this extent the L.A.S was the author of additional damage.". (Vowles v Evans and the Welsh Rugby Union Ltd [2003] EWCA Civ 318), governing bodies for failing to provide in their rules for appropriate medical provision at ringside in a boxing match (Watson v British Boxing Board of Control [2001] QB 1134), . 64. On the law relied upon by the Judge, this was all that Mr Watson needed to succeed. A defendant seeking to disturb the findings of fact of a trial Judge in relation to causation undertakes a hard task. He gave evidence that he agreed with Mr Hamlyn's views. The child's parents will seldom be in a position to know whether the psychologist's advice was sound or not. Nearly half an hour elapsed between the end of the fight and the time that he got there. That case involved four further claims by children against local education authorities for, among other things, negligently failing to address their special educational needs. 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. I consider that the Judge was entitled to find on the evidence, that had the Hamlyn protocol been in place, the outcome of Mr Watson's injuries would have been significantly better. The ambulance took him to North Middlesex Hospital, which was less than a mile away. 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. In 1991, a world title fight between Michael Watson and Chris Eubank took place in London under the BBBC Rules. A . 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. Such a concept belongs to the law of trespass not to the law of negligence".. "Where the plaintiff belongs to a class which either is or ought to be within the contemplation of the defendant and the defendant by reason of his involvement in an activity which gives him a measure of control over and responsibility for a situation which, if dangerous, will be liable to injure the plaintiff, the defendant is liable if as a result of his unreasonable lack of care he causes a situation to exist which does in fact cause the plaintiff injury. This did not, however, affect the position so far as responsibility for the safety of the boxers was concerned. Thus boxers, promoters, managers, referees, time-keepers, trainers, seconds, masters of ceremonies, match-makers, agents for overseas boxers, ringmasters and whips all have to be licensed by the Board to perform their particular functions and become, when granted their licences, members of the Board. I would simply comment that if the Board were given the statutory function of directing what medical assistance should be provided to boxers at the stadium, I consider that it would be at least arguable that they owed boxers a duty of care in exercising that function. When carrying out the assessment and advising the education authority, did the psychologist owe a duty of care to the child? Even absent such an express requirement, it seems to me that if the protocol had been in place, the doctors present should have been aware of the desirability of examining Mr Watson's condition in the circumstances that had occurred, whether or not the rules expressly required this. The Board is non-profit making. 79. held that, on the facts, a duty of care had existed. 98. In these circumstances there was insufficient proximity between the Board and the objects of the duty. The L.A.S. . In the first case, he held at pp.761-2: "The claim is based on the fact that the authority is offering a service (psychological advice) to the public. The material passages of this advice were as follows:-. . The evidence certainly supports the proposition that it was Mr Watson's injuries, and the subsequent advice given by Mr Hamlyn, that caused the Board to change its practice. On the findings of the judge it was delay which caused the further injuries. Had the Board said nothing, it might not be liable, but once it gave advice by setting rules, it came to be responsible. Clearly, they look to the Board's stipulations as providing the appropriate standard. 60. While this may not be true of the volunteer who offers assistance at the scene of an accident, it will be true of a body whose purpose is or includes the provision of such assistance. In Watson v British Boxing Board of Control Ltd,l the Court of Appeal has upheld an unprecedented decision that a regulatory body can be liable for negligence in the exercise of its rule-making functions. The issue in this action is not whether the right policy was adopted but simply whether proper care was used in making provision for medical treatment of Mr Watson. That argument was rejected. In such circumstances A's conduct can accurately be described as the assumption of responsibility for B, whether `responsibility' is given its lay or legal meaning. If he volunteers his assistance, his only duty as a matter of law is not to make the victim's condition worse. 95. b) A limit on the number of rounds to twelve (Rule 3.7). It is to make regulations imposing on others the duty to achieve these results. . The numbers of those to whom the duty is alleged to be owed in the present case are not incompatible with the requirements of proximity. Nothing that I have heard persuades me that there was any impracticality, whether in terms of manpower or in cost to the promoters, in the Board having included such a requirement in their rules. Michael Watson was a boxer who, on 21 September 1991, fought Chris Eubank under the supervision of the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC), the British professional boxing governing body. It is not clear why the ambulance took so long to reach the hospital. 1 result for "watson v british boxing board of control 2001" hide this ad. [1997] QB 1004 at 1034. 34. 103. Despite this statement, Ian Kennedy J. suggested that where there was a potential for physical injury there was no need to go beyond the test of foreseeability in deciding whether a duty of care existed, relying on Perrett v. Collins [1998] 255. The Board's Grounds of Appeal argued that in making policy decisions, the Board ought not to be held to be negligent unless such decisions were found to be wholly irrational. 65. Watson v British Boxing Board of Control 2001 QB 1134 was a case of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales that established an exception to the defence of consent to trespass to the person and an extension of the duty of care expected in cases of negligence. Each venue must have a room set aside exclusively for medical purposes. Applied Barrett v Ministry of Defence CA 3-Jan-1995 The deceased was an off-duty naval airman. The defendant in each case was a local authority. All involved in a boxing contest were obliged to accept and comply with the Board's requirements. His answer was that he was sure that these things were discussed but he could not remember. Against that judgment the Board now appeals. As I read the judgment the duty of care turned upon the acceptance by the ambulance service of the request to provide an ambulance and thus the acceptance of responsibility for the care of the particular patient. a) A requirement that a boxer must be medically examined before being granted a licence, together with a list of medical conditions that preclude the grant of a licence. The Board argued that this demonstrated that the standard applied by the Judge was too high. 119. There are, however, authorities dealing with advice given to third parties that foreseeably resulted in injury to the person or property of claimants. In the course of his work he assesses a pupil whose lack of progress at school has been causing concern all round: to teachers and parents alike. * The Board failed to require a medical examination of Mr Watson immediately following the conclusion of the contest. They alleged that the local authorities had provided services under which, in one case, educational psychologists and, in the other, advisory teachers provided advice to teaching staff and parents as to whether children had special educational needs. The doctors should decide between them who will remain ringside and who will undertake the emergency treatment should the need arise. Boxer members of the Board, including Mr Watson, could reasonably rely upon the Board to have taken reasonable care in making provision for their safety. By then, so he submitted, the evidence established that the damage would have been done. 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. While it might be possible to rationalise the reason for the duty by postulating that there is a general reliance by citizens upon the National Health Service to provide reasonable care in the case of a medical emergency, English law has set its face against this line of reasoning. In practice the Area Secretary would select the medical officers for a particular contest, albeit that the promoter would pay them. The Judge held that it was the duty of the Board, and of those advising it on medical matters, to be prospective in their thinking and to seek competent advice as to how a recognised danger could best be combated. 100. The undertaking is to use the special skills which the doctor and hospital authorities have to treat the patient. If, which I doubt, this conclusion represents any step beyond what is already settled law, I am fully persuaded it is a proper one to take.". He was also given an injection of Manitol, a diuretic that can have the effect of reducing swelling of the brain. It was open to Mr Watson to provide, or to stipulate for the promoter to provide, additional medical precautions. contains alphabet). This can, of itself, result in the restriction of the supply of oxygen to the brain. Accordingly, I am left in no doubt that the Board was in breach of its duty in that it did not institute some such system or protocol as Mr Hamlyn was to propose. In my judgment there is a clear distinction between the role of the Board and the role of a fire service or the police service. In any event, option B was the one that was undertaken. It is, however, clear that the test is an objective one: Henderson v Merrett Syndicates Ltd., [1995] 2 AC 145, 181. 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. 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. Later that day, there was a rise in intra-cranial pressure and a second operation was performed, on this occasion by Mr Hamlyn, to remove a new collection of blood and staunch a bleeding vein and artery. 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.". The vessel sailed and sank a few days later with the loss of the cargo. The aircraft crashed and the Plaintiff sustained personal injuries. Michael Watson MBE, born 15 March 1965, is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1984-1991. The Board exercises its control of professional boxing through a system of eight Area Councils, subject to overall control by Stewards and Committees. A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media But at the same time it countenances and gives its blessing to contests where the safety arrangements are those of its making. 104. 29. It is always better to err on the side of caution and even if a boxer has recovered sufficiently to leave the ring unaided, if and when he returns to the dressing room he exhibits any sign of persistent concussion or admits to any persistent headaches, visual disturbance or vomiting he should be immediately transferred to the local hospital where the expert advice of Neurologists and Neurosurgeons can be obtained. Ringside medical facilities were available, but did not provide immediate resuscitation. Hobhouse L.J. This involved taking precautions or giving instructions for them to be taken so that the work could be done with safety. In these circumstances the task is to look at the circumstances in which specific factors have given rise to the duty of care and to consider whether, on the facts of this case, they should also give rise to such a duty. His conclusions as to duty are to be found in the following passages from his judgment. We do not provide advice. On 21st September 1991 Michael Watson fought Chris Eubank for the World Boxing Organisation Super-Middleweight title at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in London. Nor has it been a requirement that the defendant should inflict the injury upon the plaintiff. In fact the Board had required a third doctor to be present and that an ambulance should be in attendance. This is an argument which might appeal to boxing enthusiasts, but would not be accepted by the British Medical Association. Lord Steyn, however, gave short shrift to an argument based on assumption of responsibility: "Given that the cargo owners were not even aware of N.K.K. Another example was a general direction given, at about the same time, that an ambulance and crew should be in attendance at a boxing contest. swarb.co.uk is published by David Swarbrick of 10 Halifax Road, Brighouse, West Yorkshire, HD6 2AG. 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. 91. A number of authorities show that an acceptance of the role (usually under statutory powers or duties) of protecting the community in general from foreseeable dangers does not carry with it a legal duty of care to safeguard individual members of the community from those dangers. There are many instances of this. For example, the relationship between the parties may be such that it is obvious that a lack of care will create a risk of harm and that as a matter of common sense and justice a duty should be imposed.. Again in most cases of the direct infliction of physical loss or injury through carelessness, it is self-evident that a civilised system of law should hold that a duty of care has been broken, whereas the infliction of financial harm may well pose a more difficult problem. The conduct of the activity of professional boxing carries with it, for the small body of men that take part in it, the need for the provision of medical assistance to treat the injuries that they sustain and minimise their adverse consequences. Ian Kennedy J. equated the formulation of rules and regulations with the giving of advice and these decisions are of relevance in this context. Nor do I see why the fact that the Board is a non profit-making organisation should provide it with an immunity from liability in negligence. [2001] QB 1134 was a case of the Court of Appeal of England Mon 8 Oct 2001 12.23 EDT Michael Watson will receive no more than 400,000 compensation in settlement of a damages claim worth up to 2.5m. No one can take part, in any capacity, in professional boxing in this Country who is not licensed by the Board and, at the same time, a member of it, for the two are essentially synonymous. at p.258 as follows: "The third defendants are a trading company incorporated under the companies Acts. 66. If wrong information had not been given about the arrival of the ambulance, other means of transport could have been used". The Board's Medical Committee had issued detailed advice to Medical Officers in relation to their duty at the ringside which was in force at the time of the Watson/Eubank fight. 61. The boxers display skill, strength and courage, but nobody pretends that they do good to themselves or others. There are also reasons of public policy for not imposing a duty of care to individuals in relation to the performance of their functions. 73. Mr Morris told the court that he would expect the Medical Committee, and its Chief Medical Officer, to keep abreast of developments in sports medicine that impacted on the safety of boxers in the ring. 3. A boxer member of the Board would not be aware of the details of all these matters. The child was in a singularly vulnerable position. It concludes that, if account is taken of all these areas, insurance has been of vital importance to the law of tort. The Judge's reference to Mr Hamlyn was to a Neurosurgeon who operated on Mr Watson at St Bartholomew's Hospital and who gave evidence on his behalf at the trial. 117. This may entail suturing of a wound, the assessment of the seriousness of any injury or maybe just simple advice concerning future training or contests. 11. The Judge summarised his findings on the facts as follows:-. In case of any confusion, feel free to reach out to us.Leave your message here. Get 1 point on providing a valid sentiment to this The Board, however, arrogates to itself the task of determining what medical facilities will be provided at a contest by (i) requiring the boxer and the promoter to contract on terms under which the Board's Rules will apply and (ii) making provision in those Rules for the medical facilities and assistance to be provided to care for the boxer in the event of injury. There he arrived in the scanning room at 00.30 on 22nd September. 3. This increases the oxygen in the blood and reduces the level of carbon dioxide. [5] Phillips noted that the BBBC had taken control of medically supervising the sport, and that the duty of care was not just to avoid injuries, but "to ensure that injuries already sustained are properly treated". Mr Watson suffered some, at least, of these secondary effects, which were the cause of his permanent brain damage. 50. agreed with Hobhouse L.J. Furthermore, if an ambulance service is called and agrees to attend the patient, those caring for the patient normally abandon any attempt to find an alternative means of transport to the hospital". Therefore, it is said, it is nothing to the point that the social workers and psychiatrist only came into contact with the plaintiffs pursuant to contracts or arrangements made between the professionals and the local authority for the purpose of the discharge by the local authority of its statutory duties. In each case it was alleged that the professional in question negligently failed to diagnose dyslexia. 54. Contracts between boxer and manager and boxer and promoter have to be in standard form, providing expressly that the parties will observe the Board's rules. 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. Moreover, the tendering of any advice will in many cases involve interviewing and, in the case of doctors, examining the child. It did not summon medical assistance and its supervision of him was inadequate". Each emphatically concluded that it was. At the end of the contest one doctor remains ringside, the other should follow both contestants back to the dressing room and should at least check that both boxers are in a satisfactory condition and if not instigate any treatment that is required, preferably in the treatment room provided.

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