Duty of Care

A legal, or moral, responsibility to avoid harm coming to another person due to negligence, either

1. where a relationship exists between parties, such as that of an employer and their employees or a school and teachers to their students, or

2. where reasonable care is expected to be discharged, such as between a service provider and a user, or a manufacturer and their products and a consumer.

The main focus of discharging a duty of care for grounds managers relates to item 1 above. This is because managers/providers are expected to provide a surface, especially where it is a playing surface, which is safe to use, and where there is a reasonable expectation from a user that they will not be injured by using that surface. Any hazards which might exist have been eliminated or minimised to a level whereby it is safe to participate on a playing surface. If an injury, or illness, occurs then a duty of care will have been breached if the injury, or illness, was reasonably foreseeable, such as a twisted ankle from a sunken sand-slit drainage system, a rabbit scrape or from ingestion of a pesticide.

Monitoring and routinely assessing a turfgrass surface will provide evidence, but not conclusive proof, that reasonable actions are being taken to minimise and eliminate the potential for harm occurring from normal playing activities on a sports pitch. Risk assessments should be carried out prior to and during a game: as part of initial playing surface preparation the grounds staff will ensure the surface has been prepared to achieve a safe condition; immediately prior to a game the surface would be checked by a responsible person (this might be ground staff, sports staff or a referee / umpire; during a game the referee, umpire or sports staff would typically be responsible for assessing any risks, which would primarily arise if adverse weather conditions arose.