Law According To A King

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...