Page 8 - Misconduct a Reference for Race Officials

SECTION 1: Basic Legal Principles

There are a number of circumstances in which an organiser might be held legally
liable for any injury or property damage suffered by a participant or a member of
the public. These include:
 negligence;
 under the Occupier’s Liability Act 1957 (if the organiser is the occupier of
premises where the event is taking part); and
 in nuisance (if the organiser interferes with another’s use or enjoyment of
land or some right in relation to land).

In this Section we concentrate on the general duty to take reasonable care, a
breach of which duty is known as negligence. Reference should also be made to
the recent cases set out in Appendix 1, which illustrate some of the issues
explained below.

Negligence
The basic principles of the law of negligence were explained in the famous case
of Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), in which the claimant alleged that she had
become ill as a result of drinking a bottle of ginger beer in which she
subsequently claimed to have found a snail. In describing the general duty of
care, Lord Atkin said:

“You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can
reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour. Who, then, in
law, is my neighbour? The answer seems to be persons who are so
closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have
them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to
the acts or omissions which are called in question.”

Reasonableness and context
From Lord Atkin’s quotation it can be seen that negligence, or the breach of a
duty of care, cannot be defined in any hard and fast practical way because it
depends on the concept of “reasonableness”, which governs each of:-
 the existence of the duty of care;
 to whom the duty is owed; and
 the standard of care that would be expected in a particular situation.

What constitutes “reasonable” will depend on context. In the case of a boating
event the context is particularly significant. Recreational boating and powerboat

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