Muir v Glasgow Corporation

Muir v Glasgow Corporation 1943 SC(HL) 3, is a leading case in English tort law and negligence.

Facts

A group of children were having a day out with their Sunday school. They were meant to be having a picnic, but the rain had ruined it. The leader of the trip asked the manager of a tearoom, run by Glasgow Corporation, if she would allow the children to have their picnic on their premises. She agreed and the group entered. In the tearoom there was a tuck shop, the window to which was located midway along a corridor. The children had all started to line up along the corridor to buy sweets at the tuck shop. At this time a large tea urn was being carried along the corridor by two adults, to the main room of the tearoom. Somehow, and it is still unknown how, the tea urn overturned and scalded a young girl (Muir).

The parents of the girl sued Glasgow Corporation, claiming that they owed the child a duty of care and that they had breached this.

Judgment

The court held that the manageress in charge owed a duty of care, generally, to everyone in the tearoom. However, she did not owe a duty of care to the Sunday school, to take additional precautions to prevent their being injured as a result of her allowing them to enter. So long as the tearoom was run in the same manner as it was day to day, and to the same safety standards, she was not required to take extra steps to prevent the incident which occurred. It was not reasonably foreseeable that allowing the children to come into the premises would result in one of them being scalded. As such, the incident was put down as an accident which could not have been prevented.

See also

• English tort law

Notes