## Facts

- Bessie Stone lived near a cricket ground owned and operated by Bolton (representing the club/ground’s owners or managers) alongside Beckenham Road.
- While Stone was in her yard near her home, she was struck on the head and injured by a cricket ball hit from the ground by a visiting player.
- The playing area was enclosed by fencing that rose well above the level of the road (about 17 feet above the road at the relevant point).
- Evidence at trial was that, over roughly 30 years before the accident, only six or seven balls had been hit out of the ground onto Beckenham Road.
- Stone sued, alleging (1) the cricket ground’s operation amounted to a public nuisance, and (2) the defendants were negligent at common law in failing to take reasonable precautions against balls leaving the ground.
- The trial court entered judgment for Bolton on both negligence and public nuisance. Stone appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the defendants were negligent in failing to take reasonable precautions to prevent a cricket ball from leaving the ground and injuring a neighboring resident, given the history of occasional balls being hit onto the adjoining road.
2. Whether the occasional escape of cricket balls onto or beyond Beckenham Road constituted an actionable public nuisance.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court on negligence and entered judgment for Stone on that claim.
- The court rejected Stone’s public nuisance claim.
- On negligence, the court was divided:
  - The majority (Singleton LJ and Jenkins LJ) found that the defendants breached the standard of reasonable care.
  - Somervell LJ dissented and would have dismissed the claim, treating the risk as too slight to require further precautions beyond those already taken.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence turns on whether a reasonable occupier would take additional precautions in light of the foreseeable risk of injury; a low frequency of past incidents is relevant but not always decisive.
- Where defendants know that balls have, on occasion, been hit out of the ground, a court may infer that reasonable care required further steps to address the risk of harm to persons outside the boundary.
- Public nuisance generally requires a material and unreasonable interference with a public right; very occasional stray balls, without more, may be insufficient to establish that level of interference.

## Conclusion

In *Stone v. Bolton*, the Court of Appeal (by a majority) held the cricket ground’s owners/managers liable in negligence after Stone was injured by a ball hit out of the ground, reasoning that the defendants’ awareness of prior escapes made the risk one that called for reasonable additional precautions; however, the court held that the same facts did not amount to an actionable public nuisance.


Stone v. Bolton, [1950] 1 K.B. 201 (1950)