Landowner promoting pyrotechnic display on its land - independent contractor's agent injured while helping with display - landowner's failure to ensure contractor covered by public liability insurance rendering it liable

Bottomley v Todmorden Cricket Club (Secretary and Members) and others: CA (Lords Justice Brooke, Waller and Clarke): 7 November 2003

The second and third defendants agreed to conduct a pyrotechnic display on the first defendant's ground, at a fundraising fair organised by it.

The second and third defendants engaged the claimant to be a helper, whose task included placing gunpowder in a plastic bag and putting it in a tube containing an electric igniter to be fired remotely.

As he was placing the gunpowder inside the tube, the tube exploded, injuring the claimant seriously.

On his claim against the defendants under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 and in negligence, the judge held the defendants liable for the claimant's injuries on the ground that they owed him a duty of care.

The first defendant appealed.

Philip Havers QC and Peter Cowan (instructed by Berrymans Lace Mawer, Liverpool) for the first defendant; Michael Shorrock QC and Richard Pearce (instructed by The Thrasher Walker Partnership, Stockport) for the claimant; the second and third defendants did not appear and were not represented.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that the first defendant as an occupier of land owed a duty of care to all lawful visitors present on its land to ensure that they were reasonably safe when it carried out the dangerous display; that such a duty imposed an obligation on the first defendant to ensure that those engaged to conduct a dangerous pyrotechnic display on its land had taken out public liability insurance to cover the event; and that, since the first defendant had failed do what it ought to have done before it allowed the dangerous event to take place, it was liable for the injuries of the claimant who was within the proximity of its duty.