Duty of care

Poppleton v Trustees of the Portsmouth Youth Activities Committee [2008] EWCA Civ 646, [2008] All ER (D) 150 (Jun); NLJ 15 September p1209

The claimant, with a group of friends, attended an activity centre where they engaged in ‘bouldering’, a low-level simulated rock-climbing activity. He was not shown any rules, asked to sign a disclaimer notice or given any instructions as to the risks. No enquiries were made as to his ability as a climber. It was agreed that the rules prohibiting jumping off the walls and climbing on top of the structure should have been more prominently displayed. The claimant leapt from a back wall intending to grab hold of a buttress or the top rope bar of the opposite wall, but lost his grip, somersaulted in the air and fell to the matting below, landing on his head. As a result he was seriously injured and was rendered tetraplegic. In rejecting his claim for damages, the court said ‘adults who chose to engage in physical activities, which obviously give rise to a degree of unavoidable risk may find that they have no means of recompense if the risk materialises so that they are injured. The risk of falling from the wall was plainly obvious … It is quite obvious that no amount of matting will avoid absolutely the risk of possibly severe injury from an awkward fall, that possibility of an awkward fall is an obvious inherent risk of this kind of climbing. If the law required training or supervision in this case, it would equally be required for a multitude of other common place leisure activities, which nevertheless carry with them a degree of obvious inherent risk-as for instance bathing in the sea’. The claim was dismissed.