http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14304489



While very sorry for the parents of the children I am glad that the courts found in favour of the National Trust

Unfortunatly accidents do happen and we should not be looking to "blame" someone everytime something happens

Yes accidents do happen. Though such measures have lead to councils removing trees in case people climb them or conkers fall on people. Schools imposing safety goggles for conker fights or banning them outright. I blame the parents for thinking that it must be compensated for.

I could envisage a scenario where they'd be liable - for example, if they knew the branch was unsafe and failed to take any remedial action then I would expect them to be liable for that.

Clearly that wasn't the case here and the courts seem to have come to the only eminently sensible conclusion.

I'd like to see a standard procedure where these 'trying it on' compensation claims can be fast-tracked through the court, to avoid wasting everybody's time and money. Maybe we can call it the 'ODFO' procedure.

Jon

Even then branches can come off. So why should it be liable. They do creak and give signs of failure.

+1
We need to change the law regarding compensation. It's just getting silly.

It should definitely be more a case of look where you are walking than the council should have made the pavement billiard table smooth.

^^^Even if the land was perfectly flat and you did everything you could to stop people tripping over, you'd still have those trying to claim compensation. I think the law should be adjusted so there are no "no win no fee" lawyers/cases. Everybody involved has to shoulder some of the bill - even if it's £100 or so. Enough to dissuade those who are trying it on but not so much that genuine cases aren't heard.

I read some HSE documentation that said the conker goggles thing was nonsense. I'm not saying non individual schools imposed it but it was nothing to do with the HSE.

Oooh I found this: http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/september.htm

The whole reason Conditional Fee Arrangements were brought in was to reduce the legal aid budget, if you took them away you'd have to put it back up again.

had to do this when I worked for forestry commission if even the tiniest little branch at the top or middle of a tree was snapped or leaning over the footpath we had to kill off the whole tree with chainsaws then chop it up into little bits, such a waste to prevent the very very near impossible chance that that tiny little branch would somehow fall at the EXACT time someone was walking past and at the most scratching them

I agree. If that branch did fall it would make a lot more noise falling through the other branches before it gets to the ground.

Yep, The HSE actually sponsored the National Conkers Championships in 2010 just to show that the conkers business was nothing to do with them (although I should point out that Amnesia said "Schools imposing safety goggles.....")

It must have been a Daily Mail headline that I remembered. I never experienced any problems playing conkers when I was younger.

I threw a great plank of wood into a tree to get some fresh conkers down, the plank had a large rusty nail at one end that tore open my thumb. So not playing conkers, but certainly related.