Reading the Nation report last week on a regrettable accident at Apes Hill Polo Club where a Canadian minor on a visit to Barbados with his parents got struck by a polo ball and injured, should make us reflect on the effect that unwarranted personal injury litigation American style is having on caring individuals and organisations. In fact BU is left to ponder why the Nation editor felt compelled to promote the story as if Barbadians are the most heartless lot to be found anywhere.
Bajans have always known that if they are spectators at a cricket game and get hit by a ball, there is no fault as they have consented to the risk by attending the game. If they park their car longside the ground and it gets hit, it is their risk. But most Bajans would go to help if anyone was injured. And BU finds it impossible to believe that this is not exactly what happened at Apes Hill. It is, after all, our nature as a people and we do not believe that the “walk on by and ignore” culture of the USA has yet reared its head in Barbados. Based on the Nation report an ambulance stationed at Apes Hill transported the injured boy to Sandy Crest medical facility after a mishap unrelated to the incident.
BU has been apprised the legal implications also are very clear. There is no negligence and no case to answer. Volenti non fit injuria (consent to the risk) applies in context of a sporting event, not only from the point of view of players, but also of spectators. The authority is Wooldridge v Sumner & Anor [1963] 2 QB 43.
It resonates with us that the Nation has nothing better to report on than an accident where a spectator got hit by a ball at a sporting event, whether a foreign spectator or not, where no negligence either occurred or can be implied and where the risk was so clearly consented to, akin to being hit by a cricket ball at a cricket game. Had this occurred in Canada, a common law country, it would not even have been reported by the press, because, in the clear absence of negligence, there is no story. No balanced story, unless it involves the alleged dissemination of under-aged pornography and actionable politically-based defamation seems to be a feature of the Nation reporting.
One is left to wonder what is the purpose the legal resources contracted by the Nation to support the business of publishing advised in this instant. This story again betrays the lack of credibility by the Nation newspaper.
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