Legal Case Summary
Bolton v Stone [1951] AC 850
TORT OF NEGLIGENCE – FACTORS RELEVANT TO BREACH OF DUTY
Facts
The claimant was injured after a ball from a neighbouring cricket pitch flew into her outside her home. The cricket field was arranged such that it was protected by a 17-foot gap between the ground and the top of the surrounding fence. Balls had been known to get over the fence and land in people’s yards, but this was rare, making the strike which hit the claimant exceptional. The claimant sued the cricket club in the tort of negligence for her injuries.
Issue
Establishing the tort of negligence involves establishing that the defendant owed the claimant a duty of care, which they breached in a manner which caused the claimant recoverable harm. To establish a breach of any duty owed, the claimant must establish that the defendant failed to act as a reasonable person would in their position.
The issue in this case was what factors were relevant to determining how the reasonable person would behave, and therefore when the defendant would be in breach of their duty of care.
Decision / Outcome
The House of Lords held that the cricket club was not in breach of their duty. The following factors were held to be relevant to whether a defendant is in breach of their duty of care:
- The likelihood of harm;
- What precautions were practical for a defendant to take in terms of cost and effort;
- Whether the defendant provides a socially-useful service.
In this case, the likelihood of the harm was very low, and erecting a fence any higher than the defendant had already done would be impractical. The cricket club was also providing a social useful service to the community. A reasonable cricket club would have, therefore, not behaved any differently.
Updated 19 March 2026
This summary of Bolton v Stone [1951] AC 850 remains legally accurate. The case continues to be good law and is routinely cited in English tort law as authority for the proposition that the likelihood of harm, the practicability of precautions, and the social utility of the defendant’s activity are all relevant factors when assessing breach of duty in negligence.
One point worth noting for completeness: the article does not mention the severity of potential harm as a relevant factor in the breach analysis. The courts have consistently treated this as an additional consideration alongside those listed — see, for example, Paris v Stepney Borough Council [1951] AC 367, decided the same year. The statutory codification of these factors in section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006 is also not mentioned; that provision places the social utility consideration (described there as whether the activity is “a desirable activity”) on a statutory footing in England and Wales, and students should be aware of it. Neither omission makes the article legally inaccurate, but readers should consult those sources for a fuller picture of how breach of duty is assessed.
