The General Medical Council clearly states that a doctor must offer help when off-duty, if an emergency arises. All involved in a boxing contest were obliged to accept and comply with the Board's requirements. 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. Get 1 point on providing a valid sentiment to this Watson v British Boxing Board of Control (1999) (QBD) During a professional boxing contest, the claimant suffered a sub-dural haemorrhage resulting in irreversible brain damage which left him with, among other things, a left-sided partial paralysis. These considerations lead to the final point made by Mr Walker in the context of proximity. 25. The defendant company had a policy for achieving responsible gambling, . Considerations of insurance are not relevant. The Judge held that on these facts Mr Watson was entitled to recover for his injuries in full, relying on the authorities of McGhee v The National Coal Board [1973] 1 WLR 1; Wiltshire v Essex A.H.A. If he volunteers his assistance, his only duty as a matter of law is not to make the victim's condition worse. In any event it would be quite wrong to determine the result of the individual facts of this case by formulating a principle of general policy that sporting regulatory bodies should owe no duty of care in respect of the formulation of their rules and regulations. The Board's Medical Committee met to consider these on the 22nd October 1991 and made recommendations which included the following: "1 The nearest hospital with a neurological unit should be notified of the date of each tournament held under the Board's jurisdiction and must be on alert in case of serious head injury. 105. Any loss of consciousness was short lived - he regained his feet and walked to his corner. 3.9 each boxer must be examined after every contest and a report sent to the Board or Area Council concerned if necessary. 97. 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. These rules included provisions for medical inspection of boxers and for the attendance of two doctors at a fight. 3. In my judgment, there must be an affirmative answer to that question. First, Watson is apparently the first reported case in which the English She claimed in negligence and occupiers liability. They have not succeeded. The Board is non-profit making. He had in fact sustained a brain haemorrhage and, after returning to his corner, he lapsed into unconsciousness on his stool. 14. In that case a doctor phoned for an ambulance to take to hospital urgently a patient who had suffered an asthma attack. During the match Watson was knocked out by Eubank, and it was 7 minutes before doctors attended him; eventually 3 doctors and an ambulance were needed. In Caparo Plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605, and in many subsequent cases, the House of Lords and this Court have approved the approach to the development of the law of negligence recommended by Brennan J. in the High Court of Australia in Sutherland Shire Council v Heyman (1985) 60 A.L.R. At this meeting Mr Hamlyn expressed the view that it was vital that at the ringside there should be the right doctors with the right equipment. The claimant drank the water, and claimed damages for having consumed arsenic in it. This involves intubation, or the insertion of an endotracheal tube. iii) Those taking part in the activity, and Mr Watson in particular, relied upon the Board to ensure that all reasonable steps were taken to provide immediate and effective medical attention and treatment to those injured in the course of the activity. He gave evidence that he agreed with Mr Hamlyn's views. One group of cases involved statutory duties imposed on local authorities for the purpose of protecting children from child abuse. The contest was sponsored not by the Board, but by the World Boxing Organisation (WBO). We do not provide advice. Thus, it has members who pay membership fees or subscriptions in return for which it provides them with facilities. In answer to a claim by the workman, the architect argued that his only duty was the contractual duty that he owed to the owners of the building. The subject matter of the advice and activities of the professionals is the child. I have not heard evidence to the effect that the Board or its medical advisers had before this incident considered, and for some reason decided not to follow, what may not unfairly be called this protocol. The doctors required by the rules to be present at a contest had to be doctors who had been approved by the Board. 31. I personally don't think that the decision to follow option B as opposed to option A had any material affect upon Watson.", The Medical facilities provided to Mr Watson at the ringside, 102. In this case the following matters are particularly material: 1. Held: A body which had responsibility for licensing and setting conditions for the boxing matches was liable in negligence when, having assumed responsibility for the boxers medical care, the standards it set were inadequate. He added : "If the plaintiff has been negligently injured by a failing by the PFA, I cannot see that it would be right to withhold relief from him simply on the ground that to grant that relief might cause a rise in the PFA's insurance premiums, or even cause a more expensive system of inspection to be substituted for that of the PFA.". As Mr Morris accepted, by reason of its control over boxing the Board was in a position to determine, and did in fact determine, the measures that were taken in boxing to protect and promote the health and safety of boxers. 70. . B. This passage was approved by Lord Steyn when the case reached the House of Lords [1996] AC 211 at 235. The onlookers derive entertainment, but none of the physical and moral benefits which have been seen as the fruits of engagement in many sports.". They also argued that it was not fair, just and reasonable that the PFA should be liable to negligence. 27. A press release issued in the 1980's', stated: "In the last 20 years, the medical protection of British professional boxers has become the Board's main raison d' trethrough its Medical Committee set up in 1950, it has provided British professional boxing with an unrivalled set of medical safety checks and balances.". 39. 101. In contrast the injuries which are sustained by professional boxers are the foreseeable, indeed inevitable, consequence of an activity which the Board sponsors, encourages and controls. 10. The Board argued that this demonstrated that the standard applied by the Judge was too high. .if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'swarb_co_uk-medrectangle-4','ezslot_4',113,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-swarb_co_uk-medrectangle-4-0'); Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete. He won a historic High Court case in Sept 1999, raising questions about the future of the professional sport in the UK. The education of the pupil is the very purpose for which the child goes to the school. While Buxton L.J. In any event I believe that this point vanishes when causation is considered. 43. The ambulance should be prepared to go direct to the Neurological unit that had been placed on stand-by. Whenever they accept a patient for treatment, they must use reasonable care and skill to cure him of his ailment.". If the boxer remains unconscious, then full emergency procedures should be undertaken, the stretcher placed in the ring, the boxer very carefully transferred to it, preferably by skilled handlers and, if needs be, the other doctor should by then have rung ambulance control and have contacted the local hospital to inform them of the problem. His evidence was that it was his practice to use it where a patient was experiencing breathing difficulties. These cases turned upon the assumption of responsibility to an individual. Whilst unattended he vomited and died as a result of inhaling his own vomit. The Judge did not rely upon the specific evidence given by Mr Watson about reliance. It seems to me that this is almost implicit in Mr Walker's argument that to issue such a requirement expressly, was to instruct a doctor as to how to perform his duty. Michael Watson was injured in a boxing match supervised by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC or BBBC), which was expected to provide medical care. An example of the ongoing review of safety standards was the Board's decision, in August 1991, that: "In future three Board Medical Officers would be appointed when a major contest was taking place. I am in no doubt that the Judge's decision broke new ground in the law of negligence. The Notice of Appeal contended that there was no evidence that, had the rules contended for by Mr Watson been in place, he would have been treated any differently; the Judge should have found that none of the doctors present, nor the ambulance man, would have intubated the claimant, whatever equipment had been available, because he was breathing spontaneously. "The postulate of a simple duty to avoid any harm that is, with hindsight, reasonably capable of being foreseen becomes untenable without the imposition of some intelligible limits to keep the law of negligence within the bounds of common sense and practicality. 51. The occurrence of a haematoma could not have been prevented but its effects could have been mitigated. 60. The Board, however, went far beyond this. Appeal from Watson v British Board of Boxing Control QBD 12-Oct-1999 A governing body of a sport, had a duty to insist on arrangements for sporting events, held under its aegis, to ensure proper access to medical aid. It much have been in the contemplation of the architect that builders would go on the site as the whole object of the work was to erect building there. In the leading judgment Hobhouse L.J. 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. In addition to the two doctors required by the rules, there was, on the direction of the Board, a third medical officer present. Lord Phillips MR Gazette 22-Mar-2001, Times 02-Feb-2001, [2000] EWCA Civ 2116, [2001] QB 1134, [2001] PIQR 16 Bailii, Bailii England and Wales Citing: Considered Perrett v Collins, Underwood PFA (Ulair) Limited (T/a Popular Flying Association) CA 22-May-1998 The plaintiff was a passenger in an aircraft which crashed, and there was a preliminary issue as to the liability to him of those who certified that the aircraft was fit to fly. 3. In these circumstances the Board should owe no greater duty of care than that imposed on a rescuer, that is a duty to exercise reasonable care not to make the situation worse, but no duty to reduce the damage that would have occurred in any event had the rescuer not intervened - see Capital and Counties plc v. Hampshire County Council. The company, as the Popular Flying Association, appoint inspectors for the purpose of, among other things, inspecting aircraft during the course of their construction by members of the association and certifying whether the relevant work has been done to his "entire satisfaction" and the aircraft is in an airworthy condition. In consequence this special need was not addressed, to the detriment of the child. The Board also argued that the nearest hospital with an Accident and Emergency Department was so close that a system which delayed the possibility of resuscitation for the few minutes that would be necessary to get to the hospital, was satisfactory. This involved taking precautions or giving instructions for them to be taken so that the work could be done with safety. This duty involved the exercise of professional skills in investigating the circumstances of the plaintiffs and (in the Newham case) conducting the interview with the child. We have been referred to no case where a duty of care has been established in relation to the drafting of rules and regulations which have governed the conduct of third parties towards a claimant. In an article on injuries in professional boxing written in 1981, Dr Whiteson stated: "My task as Senior Medical Officer is to control the medical aspects of boxing and in this to liaise closely with Area Medical Officers and with the team of medical experts which includes neurologists and orthopaedic, plastic and ophthalmic surgeons". The members of the Board are those who are involved in professional boxing. 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. A duty of care at this stage had been conceded by the Ministry of Defence, but in Capital and Counties v. Hampshire this Court commented at p.1038 that this was not surprising as the deceased was under the command of the officer concerned. None of the three doctors present went to his assistance until requested to do so. Held: A certifying . This would mean an appointment of a Senior Medical officer specifically for the major event and then two other doctors on duty to ensure that there were always two doctors at the ringside while a major contest was taking place.". Moreover, since the professionals could foresee that negligent advice would damage the plaintiffs, they are liable to the plaintiffs for tendering such advice to the local authority Like the majority in the Court of Appeal, I cannot accept these arguments. Had the ambulance been, in fact, just as satisfactory, this would have meant that the absence of a Rule requiring such a facility would have had no causative effect. 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. 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. In delivering the leading speech Lord Browne-Wilkinson observed at p.739: "The question whether there is such a common law duty and if so its ambit, must be profoundly influenced by the statutory framework within which the acts complained of were done.". That argument was rejected. 21. The doctor does not, by examining the applicant, come under any general duty of medical care to the applicant. I consider that the Judge could properly have done so. The Board held itself out as treating the safety of boxers as of paramount importance. Lord Woolf M.R. The purpose of his assessment was to enable him to give expert advice to the education authority about the child. It trades under the name of the "Popular Flying Association" and it appears that either its main role or one of its main roles is to run that association. The peculiar features of the duty of care alleged are as follows: i) the duty alleged is not to take reasonable care to avoid causing personal injury. It was foreseeable that the claimant could suffer personal injuries if there was delay. The body set up by the Board that gave particular consideration to safety standards was a Medical Committee, sometimes referred to as The Medical Panel, that was set up in 1950. The setting of rules could be akin to the giving of advice and thus had an indirect influence on the occurrence of the injury. If wrong information had not been given about the arrival of the ambulance, other means of transport could have been used". There an operation was carried out to evacuate a sub-dural haematoma. England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Watson & British Boxing Board Of Control Ltd & Anor. 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. 15. I confess I entertain no doubt on how that question should be answered. Questions of what was fair and reasonable did not arise. Caring for the needs of boxers, and in particular the physical safety of boxers, is the primary object of the Board. His answer was that he was sure that these things were discussed but he could not remember. .Cited Geary v JD Wetherspoon Plc QBD 14-Jun-2011 The claimant, attempting to slide down the banisters at the defendants premises, fell 4 metres suffering severe injury. "One can summarise the aims of treatment of a patient who has been rendered unconscious as the result of a head injury as follows: 1. 7. Lord Phillips in the Court of Appeal described the case as a unique one because here, rather than . 2. The board, however, went far beyond this. Cargo owners sued the classification society N.K.K. 42. Therefore, it is likely that injuries arising from such play occur frequently but when do they occur as an act of negligence? Had the Board's rules required Mr Hamlyn's protocol to be put in place, the doctors present could have been expected to have resorted to resuscitation. Effects are usually short-lived and do not produce lasting damage. The judgment is attacked root and branch. Michael Watson was injured in a boxing match supervised by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC or BBBC), which was expected . The decision is of interest for several reasons. A doctor, an accountant and an engineer are plainly such a person. In this way the Board reduces this aspect of the promoter's responsibility to the boxer to the contractual obligation to comply with the requirements of the Board's Rules in relation to the provision of medical facilities and assistance. A preliminary issue was tried as to whether Mr Usherwood and the PFA owed the Plaintiff a duty of care. On 24 September 1999 Ian Kennedy J., gave judgment in favour of Mr Watson against the Board. 91. These make it necessary: i) to identify the principles which are relied upon as giving rise to a duty of care in this case. Watson & British Boxing Board Of Control Ltd & Anor IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE Case No: QBENF1999/1137/A2 COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION) ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION (THE HON MR JUSTICE IAN KENNEDY) Tuesday 19th December 2000 THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS LORD JUSTICE MAY LORD JUSTICE LAWS Respondent/Claimant That case involved four further claims by children against local education authorities for, among other things, negligently failing to address their special educational needs. Lord Browne-Wilkinson answered this question in the affirmative. Watson successfully sued the BBBC for 400,000 after being left with brain injuries following his 1991 fight with Chris Eubank. In these circumstances there was insufficient proximity between the Board and the objects of the duty. The Board's authority is essentially based upon the consent of the boxing world. 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. 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. 85) or a producer may be liable for the absence of an adequate warning on the labelling of his product (e.g. "If the protocol had been in place, and Dr Shapiro had been required to go straight to the ring, he would have begun the necessary procedures within a minute or two of the collapse and so by 23.00. "It is these sorts of accidents which provoke the changes". (pp.27-8). The BBBC had a series of rules on the medical coverage needed for boxing matches, which required two doctors to be present at all times. Those limits have been found by the requirement of what has been called a "relationship of proximity" between plaintiff and defendant and by the imposition of a further requirements that the attachment of liability for harm which has occurred be "just and reasonable". The propeller was mismatched to the gearbox. "There is always a risk, and the pool from which professional boxers tend to be recruited is unlikely to be one with an innate or well-informed concern about safety, and one may ask why should the individual boxer not rely on the Board's arrangements? held at p.557: "Is this a case in which it can be said that the plaintiff was closely and directly affected by the acts of the architect as to have been reasonably in his contemplation when he was directing his mind to the acts or omissions which are called into question? 61. 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. Interact directly with CaseMine users looking for advocates in your area of specialization. The Board assumes the, 89. the Hillsborough cases: e.g. I turn to the distinctive features of this case. If any doubt arises concerning a boxer's condition then referral to a local hospital for emergency treatment or advice should be undertaken and a report sent to the Board. "In Barnett v Chelsea & Kensington Management Committee [1969] 1 Q.B. In the second place it was not practical to use this equipment while the ambulance was on the move. The Judge went on to review such statistical evidence as there was in relation to the frequency of occurrence of head injuries in boxing and observed that there had been no evidence to suggest that the Board considered and balanced the difficulty of providing the adequate response to the risks of head injury against their frequency of occurrence and severity of outcome.

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