Yates v National Trust
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
- MR JUSTICE NICOL
Areas of Law
- Tort Law
- Employment Law
2014
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In December 2009, an arborist employed by contractor Joe Jackman fell and became paraplegic while felling a tree at Morden Hall Park, owned by the National Trust (NT). The Claimant sued the NT for negligence, arguing NT failed to take reasonable care in selecting the contractor and ensuring safe work methods. The court held that NT did not owe a relevant duty of care to the Claimant in selecting Joe Jackman or ensuring proper work methods. Even if such a duty existed, the NT was not in breach since Joe Jackman had a history of satisfactory work for the NT.
Judgment
Mr Justice Nicol :
Morden Hall Park in Surrey is one of the properties owned by the National Trust (‘NT’). Morden Lodge is in the south west corner of the Park. It is occupied by private tenants and the public do not have access to it, but the gardens of the Lodge are managed by the NT. In February 2009 the NT’s gardener, Alan Green, carried out a Visual Tree Assessment (‘VTA’) of the trees in the garden of the Lodge. Not far from both the Lodge itself and from the River Wandle, which flows through the gardens of the Lodge, was a horse chestnut tree that was described as suffering from extensive bleeding canker and honey fungus. The VTA said that it should be felled within the following 6 months. The warden of Morden Hall Park was Chris Heels. For some 2 ½ years, Mr Heels had made use of a tree surgeon, or arborist, called Joe Jackman. On Tuesday 1 st December 2009 Mr Heels contracted with Mr Jackman to undertake several days of work in Morden Hall Park. On Wednesday 2 nd December Mr Heels showed Mr Jackman the horse chestnut tree, and said it needed to be taken down. They agreed that two days should be allowed for this particular job. Mr Jackman had worked with a team of others when previously employed at Morden Hall Park and he worked with others at the beginning of this week in December. On Thursday 3 rd December he telephoned Mr Heels and said that he would not be available the next day, but other members of his team would be there and would start work on the horse chestnut tree.
On Friday 4 th December three members of Joe Jackman’s team arrived. They were the Claimant, who was then 22, Scott Ralston and Oliver Mackrell. The Claimant climbed the tree using a rope and harness and began to cut off the branches of the tree with a chain saw. Joe Jackman had told them they were to fell the tree sectionally. This involved first cutting off the limbs of the tree which were dropped to the ground and then, when that was done, cutting the main trunk in sections. Mr Ralston and Mr Mackrell remained on the ground and fed the branches into a wood chipper. The tree was about 23 metres high. The Claimant had been working for about 1 – 1 ½ hours and was probably about 50 feet up when he fell to the ground. He has no memory of what caused him to fall and neither Mr Ralston nor Mr Mackrell was looking in his direction at the time. When Mr Mackrell got to the Claimant he was tangled in his rope and Mr Mackrell said he cut the rope with secateurs in two or th