All three judges, Somervell, Singleton and Jenkins LJJ, dismissed nuisance on the same grounds as Oliver J. Somervell LJ, dissenting, held that the claimant had failed to establish that the defendants had not taken due and reasonable care, so was not negligent either. However, the majority, Singleton and Jenkins LJJ, held that an accident of this sort called for an explanation, and that the defendants were aware of the potential risk. On that basis, applying the legal maxim of res ipsa loquitur, the defendants were found negligent. The defendants appealed to the House of Lords. House of Lords The House of Lords heard argument on 5 March and 6 March 1951, delivering their judgment on 10 May 1951. The House of Lords (Lord Porter, Lord Normand, Lord Oaksey, Lord Reid and Lord Radcliffe) unanimously found that there was no negligence, although most considered it a close call based on whether the reasonable person would foresee this as anything more than an extremely remote risk. Most of the Lords agreed that the key issue was that of making the key question one of determining the fact of what the reasonable person would have in mind regarding assumption of this risk. This was not considered to be a point of law, which is the province of judges, but a factual question, which may also be determined by a jury. In this case the risk was considered (just) too remote for the reasonable person, in spite of the observation by Lord Porter that hitting a ball out of the ground was an objective of the game, "and indeed, one which the batsman would wish to bring about". The Lords believed there were policy implications in terms of the message of what liability would have meant in creating restrictions in what we can do in our everyday lives in an urbanised modern society. In words of Lord Atkin in Donoghue v Stevenson, "You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour." Whether the defendant had a duty to the claimant to take precautions to take into account the foreseeability of the risk and the cost of measures to prevent the risk. The risk in this case may have been foreseeable, but it was so highly improbable that a reasonable person could not have anticipated the harm to the claimant and would