Injury Lawyers Help Aspiring Footballer's Compensation Claim

A young, aspiring footballer who had his dreams destroyed of playing the sport, has won the right to compensation with the help of his injury lawyer. The incident took place, when he was hit in the eye with a stone thrown by another pupil, in a playground accident

The Court of Appeal judges had ruled that dinner ladies where over stretched and if more had been on duty, then the accident may never have happened, making Cornwall county council liable for they boy's injuries. The Court of Appeal judges had said that effectively hundreds of year nine and 10 pupils where playing unsupervised during their break time on July 12th 2001.

With just two 'dinner ladies' on duty to supervise up to 400 pupils on the school playing field. Lord Justice Waller who sat with Lord Justice Longmore and Lord Justice Richards, said their attention was focused on younger children and they had time to make "only the occasional glance" towards year nine and year 10 pupils, who were aged between 13 and 15.

The women on duty had understandably given most of their attention to year seven and eight pupils and, one of the dinner ladies, had told the Court that: "There was not even one supervisor with 100% concentration on year's nine and ten". He continued to say: "[I] did not appreciate anything was going on until the boy was being led from the field and that was despite the fact he had fallen down and cried out in agony."

The incident happened after another male student at the school, during the lunch break, was placing food on the ground in an attempt to tempt birds down so he could throw stones at them. It is believed that if there had been enough dinner ladies on duty, then they would of been able to stop the boy and the whole incident would not of happened.

The injured boy's, injury lawyers did originally file a compensation claim against the boy, who threw the stone, but this was later withdrawn, and legal team, the lodged a claim against the local council. The claim against the council was thrown out by Mr Recorder Chippindall at the County Court in 2008, but now the Court of Appeals ruling has paved the way for a claim to be made against the council.

In relation to the boy's appeal, the judge concluded: "To have one dinner lady supervisor who would be stretched to supervise over 150 pupils in years seven and eight, only glancing occasionally at years nine and 10, was, in my view, clearly negligent.

"Since the purpose of appropriate supervision is to deter children taking part in dangerous activities, as well as to stop dangerous activities if they do occur, a court should not be too ready to accept that the dangerous activity would have happened anyway."

The boy has suffered problems with his vision ever since the incident and has been unable to pursue the football career he dreamed of when he was at school, incidentally the boy had been given a tryout at Plymouth Argyle football club days before the incident happened.

It is unlikely that he will be receiving the same amount of compensation that a Manchester United youngster would receive, when his football career was cut short but it will be interesting to see just where the line can be drawn when any potential earnings, are factored into a compensation claim

RESOURCES
Find out if you can make a compesation claim, if you have been injured in an accident that wasn't your fault. Speak to one of our injury lawyers and see how they can help.