Bermingham & Brennan: Tort Law Directions 
Guidance on answering problem and essay questions
Test bankBermingham & Brennan: Tort Law Directions
Chapter 5
Page 72
Harris v Perry [2008] EWCA Civ 907
An 11 year old boy suffered serious and lasting injuries while jumping on a bouncy castle which had been hired for a friend’s birthday party. He sued their mother in negligence on the grounds that she had failed to supervise adequately the use of the bouncy castle by the children at the time of the accident; specifically that she had allowed children of differing sizes to bounce at the same time and that she had not been sufficiently vigilant in preventing somersaulting by the children. In reversing the finding of liability at first instance, the Court of Appeal held that the standard of care that was required to show was that which a reasonably careful parent would show for her own children. Given that there was no reasonably foreseeable significant risk of serious harm in the circumstances, the defendant’s level of supervision had not breached the standard of care. It should be noted that although the Compensation Act 2006 was not cited in the judgment, it was reflected in the resistance to the ‘compensation culture’ of s.1.
View print version