Woodland v Essex County Council (2013) UKSC 67

Judgment has been passed on a landmark case in the Supreme Court in which the Court had to decide whether a local education authority had breached it's duty of care to a pupil of a local school who had been attending swimming lessons and had suffered a serious brain injury during one of those lessons.

The lessons had been provided by a third party contractor during school hours, however the local authority was still found liable for the injuries suffered. The judgment sets out the criteria to determine when a body will have a duty of care even where it has delegated certain functions to a contractor. The judgement will undoubtedly have implications for medical negligence cases where the NHS has contracted out some of it's functions to a third party supplier.

You can view the judgment here