The Defence of Consent and Assumption of Risk

  

Date Posted: 3/22/2012 1:17:26 PM

Posted By: maxwellgoko  Membership Level: Bronze  Total Points: 45

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The defence was held to avail the defendant in Chapman v. Lord Ellesmere [1932] 2 KB 478. The facts of the case are: Don Pat, a horse, had won a race organized by a club called Jockey Club. The manner in which the horse raced interested the stewards of the club who accordingly ordered the horse to be examined. This was stipulated in the Rules of Racing of the Jockey Club. The stewards held that the horse had been drugged and the case was taken before the stewards of the club who were the defendants in this case. The plaintiff, Mr. Chapman, was the trainer of the horse. He had to appear before the stewards and answer for the status of the horse. He was accorded a fair hearing. The stewards found that the horse was in fact drugged and as a result disqualified him for that race and all future races. They also withdrew Chapman’s licence as a trainer. Under the Racing Rules the stewards were authorized to publish their decisions in the Racing Calender. This decision about Don Pat was published. Mr. Chapman complained of the following words:
“The acting stewards of the Kempton Park Summer Meeting met on September the 13th to receive the result of the examination which they had ordered to be made of Don Pat after winning the Bedfont Highweight Handicapp. Having interviewed Mr. Rowe, the owner of Don Pat, and C. Chapman [ the plaintiff], the trainer, they referred the case to the stewards o the Jockey Club. The stewards of the Jockey Club (Lord Ellesmere acting for Lord Zetland) after further investigation satisfied themselves that a drug had been administered to the Horse for the purpose of the race in question. They disqualified the horse for this race and for all future

races under their rules, and warned C. Chapman, the trainer of the horse, off New Market Heath.”
The plaintiff said that the statement meant that he had actually been involved in drugging Don Pat. This, however, was held to be a meaning which could only be accepted by the Court as an innuendo.
The defence of consent was held by Slesser, L.J to avail the defendants because the plaintiff had accepted the Rules of Racing (which were part of the terms and condition to get the trainer’s licence) which permitted the publication of their decisions in Racing Calendar. That the words published contained a defamatory meaning in the form of an innuendo, was a risk the plaintiff voluntarily assumed by assenting to the rules of racing.

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