Nina Unthank provides an update on the root & branch issues of liability at home & abroad
With the onset of the blustery autumnal weather, the two cases detailed below are particularly pertinent. They highlight how difficult it is to establish liability in negligence or breach of statutory duty for death and injury resulting from falling tree branches.
Falling branches
The Court of Appeal dismissed the claimant’s appeal in Joanne Micklewright (on her own behalf and as executrix of the estate of Christopher John Imison Deceased) v Surrey County Council [2011] EWCA Civ 922, [2011] All ER (D) 281 (Jul). Mr Imison went on a bike ride in Windsor Great Park with his partner and his 13-year-old son. As he was unloading bicycles from the family car he was struck and fatally injured by an oak tree branch weighing nearly one ton which broke away from the trunk some 25 feet away from where he was standing on a public highway. The trial judge found that no proper system of inspection
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