Commonsense Approach from the Courts

You may be familiar from the tabloid papers about the case that was brought against the parent of a boy who was left very seriously injured as a result of another boy somersaulting on a bouncy castle that had been hired for a party which resulted in an extremely large compensation claim.

The claim was clearly a very sensitive one from the point of view that the boy who was injured suffered a very serious head injury that will affect him for the rest of his life and the claim was being brought against the parents of the child who was simply trying to give their child the best birthday party possible by hiring a bouncy castle and who would have felt terrible anyway, as any parent would, by the fact that someone would have been seriously hurt whilst at their child’s party.

The claim was being brought on the basis that the parents who had hired the bouncy castle, and whose child’s party it was, not to have provided adequate supervision and originally the court supported that view and found the parents liable to pay compensation which could have been in the region of one million pounds due to the ongoing care required by the injured boy as a result of this accident that would be needed for the rest of his life.

A court of appeal however has recently overturned the decision in a very sympathetic but straight talking judgment Lord Phillips ruled that  “Children play by themselves or with other children in a wide variety of circumstances.   There is a dearth of case precedents that deals with the duty of care owed by parents to their own or other children when they are playing together.

It is impossible to preclude all risk that, when playing together, children may injure themselves or each other, and minor injuries must be commonplace.   It is quite impractical for parents to keep children under constant surveillance or even supervision and it would not be in the public interest for the law to impose a duty upon them to do so.

The Defendant could not be held at fault for the way she acted.   The manner in which she was supervising activities on the bouncy castle and the bungee run accorded with the demands of reasonable care for the children using them.   The accident was a freak and tragic accident.  It occurred without fault”.

Following this judgment by the court of appeal it remains the case that here at Brearleys we appreciate that there is a difference to those claims, particularly involving children whereby it is simply children being children, acting in a “rough and tumble” way that children have always acted as opposed to a situation where there has been a severe lacking in care by a person or an organisation that has led to a child being injured in circumstances where this clearly could have been avoided.

If you are faced with a situation such as this and you require our opinion then clearly we are quite happy to discuss this with you in a no obligation telephone call on our free phone number of 0800 0923422.