Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Accident definition

What does Accident mean? In legal practice, an accident describes a sudden, unintended and unexpected event that causes personal injury, death or property damage. The term is descriptive and used across personal injury (negligence, employers’ liability, public liability), insurance and health and safety law; its precise scope depends on context and any applicable statute or policy wording. In road traffic cases, legislation imposes duties following an accident (for Great Britain, see Road Traffic Act 1988, s.170; Northern Ireland has equivalent provisions; Ireland’s Road Traffic Acts contain similar duties). In workplace health and safety, reporting regimes refer to accidents (for example, RIDDOR in Great Britain and...

School injury claims: negligence, SARHA 2015, supervision, vicarious liability, pupil-on-pupil and sports injuries, limitation (England and Wales)

Published by a LexisNexis Local Government expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note considers responsibility for incidents on School premises, drawing on case law to show which elements can, in practice, separate a winning claim against a school or its proprietors from one that fails. These elements encompass duty of care, vicarious liability, contributory negligence, foreseeability of consequences, causation and proximity, the Child’s age, disposition and mental capacity, the standard of supervision expected in a school, and whether at the material time the child was within the school’s care or control.

Accidents happen in schools

Children are frequently hurt with no fault attributable to any person. By their very nature they are young and inexperienced. Likewise, they cannot expect to pass through life avoiding all risk; and when they do take a risk—often, through lack of life experience, unknowingly or misjudging its extent—they may, on occasion, be injured despite care being taken. Accidents do occur and 'not every misfortune occurring on school premises attracts compensation', according to the Court of Appeal in Richards v Bromley London Borough...

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Victoria Denis

Doyle Clayton

Victoria is an education law solicitor with a primary focus on further and higher education. She has extensive experience handling cases involving academic and non-academic misconduct, fitness to practice, PhD supervision, degree classification, fee disputes, and exclusions.Victoria's expertise includes the Equality Act 2010, particularly discrimination on the basis of disability, sex, sexual orientation, race, and gender reassignment. Victoria has guided students through university complaints procedures and appeals process to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, and has litigated matters up to the Court of Appeal. Victoria also advises parents on a range of school-related issues, including discrimination, bullying, safeguarding, gender questioning, special educational needs, and exclusions.Victoria is a contributing author to The Law of Education, covering chapters on Negligence, Contractual Liability, and Equalities. She is a member of the Education Law Association. Victoria has contributed to research undertaken by The Times and ITV on the...

Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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