Shaira Alexis v London Borough of Newham [2009] - EWHC
1323
In this case the claimant was employed as a teacher at Brampton
Manor School. She taught English and was having particular
difficulty with her GCSE Media Studies class, but those
difficulties were not known to the rest of the school staff. Ms
Alexis suffered physical and psychological injuries when, on 10
February 2005, she took a drink from a bottle of water which she
kept in her classroom. Unknown to her one of her pupils had added
whiteboard cleaning fluid to it. She sued London Borough of Newham
as her employer and as the authority responsible for the school.
The basis of her case was that a fellow teacher was negligent in
giving the keys of her classroom to two pupils, including the
poisoner, on the previous day contrary to the established practice
that pupils should not be given unsupervised access to
classrooms.
Brampton Manor School had been a troubled school, but by 2001 it
was described as a school that the local community could rightfully
feel proud of.
The judge found that the school had a policy to ensure that
pupils were not to be left unattended in classrooms, empty
classrooms were to be kept locked and only staff and other
authorised personnel were allowed possession of classroom keys.
This was said to be a commonsense approach, not a strict rule or a
written policy.
The claimant's case was that it was foreseeable that children
left unsupervised might get up to mischief, the mischief might
consist of theft or damage to property, but also conduct which
might result in injury to other pupils or to teaching staff. If
that was true then the defendant was under a duty to take
reasonable steps to prevent such injury and in particular to adhere
to its policy of locking classrooms so as to minimise the risk of
injury being caused as a result of mischief by pupils.
The court approached this problem by first of all considering
foreseeability. The court referred to Lamb v Camden London
Borough Council [1981] IQB 625 where Oliver LJ said that where
the consequence the court is considering is one which results from
or would not have occurred but for the intervention of some
independent human agency over which the defendant has no control,
it has to ask what could be reasonably foreseen by the defendant
and thus the damage for which he is responsible. The question,
therefore, is on what basis can the act of the independent human
agency be attributed back to the defendant? The court also referred
to Smith v Littlewoods Organisation Ltd [1987] 1 AC 241
where the court said that what a reasonable man is bound to foresee
in a case involving injury or damage by independent human agency is
the probable consequences of his own act or omission.
The court in this case said that there was nothing to suggest
that it was foreseeable to the teaching staff that any pupil might
seek to poison another teacher. The judge also said that what took
place could be regarded as being the same type of behaviour which
was foreseeable if pupils got up to mischief, but the precise
behaviour which took place here was not reasonably foreseeable.
The judge went on to say that to establish a duty of care there
needs to be more than the fact that loss or damage is foreseeable.
The behaviour was not so improbable as to render it unreasonable or
unjust to impose upon the defendant a duty to take reasonable
precautions to prevent or minimise the risk of injury. The judge
concluded that the education authority did owe a duty of care to
take reasonable steps. However, he did not accept that the duty had
been breached. The judge said that with the possible exception of
the claimant none of the teachers had any reason to suspect that
the pupil was likely to do what she did. Clearly if the pupil
involved had a prior history of this sort of behaviour then it is
likely that the court would have found that a breach of duty of
care had been established.
Contributed by Catriona Stewart