B3/2000/3178
Neutral Citation Number: [2001] EWCA Civ 219
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE BLACKPOOL COUNTY COURT
(His Honour Judge Appleton)
	Royal Courts of Justice
	Strand
	London WC2

	Tuesday, 13th February 2001

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE HENRY

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JANE DEBORAH BURKE	Claimant/Respondent

-v-

(1)  LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
(2)  BLACKPOOL & FYLDE COLLEGE CORPORATION
Defendants/Applicants
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Computer Aided Transcript of the Palantype Notes of
Smith Bernal Reporting Limited
190 Fleet Street  London EC4A 2AG
Tel: 020 7421 4040  Fax: 020 7831 8838
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

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Mr Gruffydd (instructed by Messrs Napthen Houghton Craven, Preston, Lancashire) appeared on behalf of the Applicant Defendants.

The Respondent Claimant did not appear and was not represented.

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J U D G M E N T
1.	LORD JUSTICE HENRY: On oral renewal of his application before me, Mr Gruffydd, for the applicants here, seeks leave on ground 1(a) of his grounds of appeal, formally abandoning ground 1(b) and ground 2. 
2.	In relation to ground 1(a) he joins issue with the Court as to whether it was right, on the facts before the trial court, for this Court to have concluded that on one test the stack of chairs remained upright for six minutes and 50 seconds before collapse. That seemed to me to be so unusual a danger to warrant a warning. But Mr Gruffydd contends that, on the evidence before the trial judge, the longest time before collapse was just 21 seconds, and the six minutes and 50 seconds is a reference to a different or less satisfactory test. First, five chairs were used rather than four; and second, it seems that the stack did not fall in that test but merely slipped. So he challenges the applicability of the basis on which, when refusing leave, I had approached the matter.
3.	It seems to me that there is something in this point. Accordingly, I give leave.
Order: application for permission to appeal granted; costs reserved to the appeal.
(Order does not form part of approved Judgment)