To bounce or not to bounce?

Adrian Witt, Personal Injury Partner
email: a.witt@waldrons.co.uk

Many people will recall from earlier this year a case where parents who had hired a bouncy castle for their children’s 10th birthday party, were sued by a boy badly injured when playing on the bouncy castle.

This original decision has now been overturned in the Court of Appeal who also gave helpful guidance to parents about what to consider when wondering whether to hire or not to hire a bouncy castle or other inflatable for a children’s party.

In the original hearing the Judge decided that the level of supervision provided by the parents who had hired the bouncy castle was insufficient in that they allowed children of different sizes to use the bouncy castle at the same time and also that they failed to stop the children from doing summersaults. It was when a larger boy was doing a summersault that he accidentally kicked the injured boy, resulting in serious injuries.

The Court of Appeal has now decided that the appropriate level of supervision required is that of a reasonably careful parent taking into account the facts that they ought to know at the time.

The Court of Appeal also decided that a reasonable parent would not necessarily foresee that there is a risk of serious injury occurring as a result of what the Court described as “boisterous play”

In this case therefore the parent watching the Castle was considered to have provided an appropriate level of supervision to protect against the risks that they might reasonably have considered when using such a bouncy castle.

Although in this case an accident did occur, there was considered to be nothing that the person supervising the castle could have done to prevent it from happening. It does not mean however, that parents or other people hiring such inflatables will never be considered legally responsible for accidents that happen while people are using them.

It is clear that there should still be proper supervision of the inflatable. Some accidents are unavoidable, happening in a split second and no level of supervision can prevent them. However, with appropriate supervision the risk of such accidents can be minimised. A failure to provide any supervision will still result in people injured as a result of avoidable accidents being able to sue the people hiring the inflatable.

Courts will also expect people supervising the inflatable to step in and stop rowdy and boisterous behaviour. It was recognised both in the first hearing and also by the Court of Appeal that there is a duty on the part of people hiring such equipment to be aware of the risks and to supervise appropriately.

The decision of the Court of Appeal will therefore have reassured many people who might otherwise have thought twice about whether or not to hire an inflatable for a party or other event. It is not however a decision that means that there are no circumstances where the hirer of the inflatable will be held accountable for an accident, but taking a sensible approach to the question should mean that people can still enjoy happy bouncing without fear of ending up in Court.