GOLFERS WARNED BY COURT OF APPEAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18057, 18 January 1927, Page 10

GOLFERS WARNED BY COURT OF APPEAL.

(Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, November 25. A legal correspondent of the “Westminster Gazette” writes: One of the revived Moots was held at the Middle Temple last night, with the cighty-four-year-old ex-Lord Chancellor, Lord Finlay, acting as judge in a supposed Court of Appeal. Though the case was about a man hit by a cricket-ball, Lord Finlay hinted that in fact the legal question was more likely to arise in golf. The trouble (albeit a legal fiction) had arisen over a cricket professional in a ground surrounded by a 6ft wall, with the result that the ball injured a passer-by. The latter sued the cricket club and the professional for damages, but the judge in the first Court held that there was no case for the jury. The injured mail appealed. A barrister and a student argued on each side, Messrs E. Majoribanks and S. 11. Joel for the appellant, and Messrs F. L. Moss and E. Ryder Richardson for the respondents. One of them argued that a. cricketball was not a dangerous thing. Lord Finlay: That is only so when it is at rest. Another, in true Buzfuz style, declared, amid laughter, a propos of an Admiralty case cited: “1 am not a naval man.” Finally Lord Finlay found that both cricketer and club were liable in damages, and warned golfers that both themselves and the clubs that housed them might be held similarly liable if a passer-by outside the course were struck by a ball,