Law According To A King

We all know the plot of the first Shrek  movie: Lord Farquaad rounds up the land's fairytale creatures and dumps them in Shrek's swamp, leading the ogre to rescue a princess to get his land back, but what if there was an easier way than enduring blistering winds and scorching deserts, climbing to the highest room of the tallest tower, fighting a dragon, and trekking across the country with a talking donkey and a were-ogre princess in tow? What if, for argument's sake, Shrek visited his local lawyer? In England, where we shall assume the plot takes place (thanks to the accent of Lord Farquaad), all land is legally owned by the Crown, but it is safe to assume that Shrek owns his land in a freehold - technically a 'fee simple absolute in possession'. What does this mean exactly? 'Fee' means that the swamp is inheritable, 'simple' means it can be possessed by anyone, not just lineal descendants, 'absolute' means that there are no conditions on ...

The other day I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a meme about how Roald Dahl's character, Willy Wonka, was never held accountable for how 80% of the children who visited his factory ended up injured. It got me thinking... could the children, or their parents, sue Willy Wonka under the tort law of negligence and, more specifically, occupiers' liability? Of course, all rights are reserved to Roald Dahl and the respective parties for the film adaptations. Here, we will be referencing the Tim Burton adaptation solely, as this was all I had to hand when researching this blog post. Firstly, the law of occupiers' liability comes under two statutes: the Occupiers' Liability Acts of 1957 and 1984 - the former governs visitors, and the latter governs trespassers. For the purposes of this area of law, an 'occupier' refers to someone who has "a sufficient degree of control over the premises," according to Lord Denning in Wheat v Lacon. It is undeniab...