growing thorny bushes in estate garden

GoodLord

If you live in an estate and have a four fot high front garden fence could you grow thorny bushes inside it at your side? If kids are reaching over and get hurt would they be able to say it should have been 'forseeable'. Ditto for plants with berries which may be poisionous if eaten

I do not know the right legal word for forseeable'. . In the storm last winter it was said people who had dangerous trees should have been able to forsee possible danger. Is it 'reasonable forsee'?

littlemac1980

Personally - and I stress this is only my own personal view - I believe with the exception of very young children and someone with a form of mental disability, that all people recognise the danger of thorns - provided they are visible - I think that most thorns by their nature grow to be visible as a deterrent because their danger is readily apparent and universally recognised among humans and animals alike.

Short of running into a thorn bush and a freak serious injury to an eye occurring - i don't believe its likely any irish thorns would cause more than a minor injury before the person would have the sense to stop touching them. Of course that's not referring to any risk of infection - but does that risk not essentially arise everywhere anyway?

Berries might be a different story - and in fairness it could only be a child with either terribly negligent parents - who never warned that child of the dangers of wild berries - or one who disregarded such warnings who'd chose to eat wild berries. But I suppose if they were low enough for a young child to pick at and looked particularly delicious, an argument could well be made that it was obvious a child might go ahead and have a taste.

Either way if a case arose in either situation - be if for plaintiff or defendant - I'd expect that there could be issues to be addressed regarding liability.