Bouldering claim falls over obvious risks

The duties of organisations providing sporting activities which include a risk of injury has again been considered by the courts. David Williams and Richard Rowe examine the latest case.

The claimant in Maylin v Dacorum Sport Trust [2017] EWHC 378 QB, who had not climbed before, attended the defendant's climbing centre with a friend, who had been assessed as competent to supervise on a previous occasion.  The claimant chose not to pay for supervision and, after being advised that her colleague was responsible for her safety (including her using a harness correctly), she completed a disclaimer acknowledging that climbing was an activity with a danger of personal injury or death and that participants accepted those risks and were responsible for their own actions. The claimant acknowledged specifically that she understood a failure to exercise due care could result in injury or death, that she had no questions in relation to the conditions of use or rules of the centre and that she agreed to abide by those rules. As she only paid for 'general admission', she did not receive a specific safety briefing from the centre.

After a period of using the climbing wall, the claimant and her colleague moved to the bouldering wall, beneath which mats were positioned. Bouldering walls are used for climbing without a safety harness and rope and signs located at the entrance to the bouldering area indicated that soft mats do not make it any safer, broken or sprained limbs are common. On her third ascent of the bouldering wall, the claimant slipped from the wall and fell, suffering injury.

At trial, the claimant accepted there was an obvious risk of her falling, but (despite the signs) asserted that she had expected the mat to take the impact and break her fall and that this expectation had caused her to climb to the height from which she fell. She also sought to persuade the Court that the defendant had failed to draw her attention to the risks involved in climbing, the defendant had failed to provide her with basic safety information and the defendant should have trained and supervised her.

In his judgment, His Honour Judge McKenna concluded that the risk of falling from the wall was plainly obvious, as was the fact that no amount of matting would have broken the claimant's fall or prevented her suffering injury from an awkward fall which was an inherent and obvious risk. As the Court had made clear in Poppleton v Trustees of Portsmouth Youth Activities, there is an inherent and obvious risk in bouldering and the defendant was not required to train, supervise or warn the claimant of this. In any event, the defendant had taken sufficient steps to draw the claimant's attention to the risks inherent in climbing and in particular the risk that the matting would not prevent injury in all cases.

Following the cases of Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council and Poppleton, this case confirms that the law should not intervene when injuries are suffered as a result of a person willingly participating in activities where the risks of injury are inherent and obvious and also accepted, although it highlights the importance of ensuring that participants are alerted to those risks through the use of signs and mandatory disclaimers.

David Williams is a partner and Richard Rowe is an associate at DAC Beachcroft. David can be contacted on 0113 251 4844 orThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., while Richard can be reached on 0121 698 5356 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..