Posted By gham No (contravertial) You could make a civil claim for damages against the person who injured you as they have an obligation not to intentionaly cause you loss or harm, provided you can prove that they acted with intent to cause you loss or harm no injury done to a consenting party. the person who knowingly and willingly puts himself in such a dangerous situation cannot sue for any resulting injuries. Intersting Case Below Smoldon v Whitworth. The plaintiff suffered spinal injuries in a collapsing rugby scrum during a match refereed by the defendant. The referee accepted that he owed a duty of care, but submitted (1) that it was not he, but rather the other people in the scrum, who had caused the plaintiff’s injury, and that he could not be held liable unless it could be said that it was highly probable that a scrum collapse would cause injury to a player in the plaintiff’s position if the relevant rugby laws were not applied; (2) that the plaintiff had volunteered to play in the front row and, or alternatively, had participated in the practice of scrum collapsing and so increased the risk that the other team would do the same, and that he, as referee, therefore had a defence of volenti non fit injuria; and (3) that if he were found to have a duty to exercise such degree of care as was appropriate in all the circumstances, the threshold of liability would be too low, and referees would be too vulnerable to suits by injured players. The judge found against the referee who appealed. Held, the referee did owe a duty to exercise such degree of care as was appropriate in all the circumstances, and the circumstances were of crucial importance. A referee could not properly be held liable for errors of judgment, oversight or lapses of which any referee might be guilty in a fast-moving, vigorous game, and the threshold of liability was high. As to (1), however, the scrummaging rules were designed to minimise a risk of which referees were well aware by the time that the present plaintiff was injured. If the referee was properly found to be in breach of his duty of care by failing to take appropriate steps to prevent a scrum collapse, and if, as a result of his failure, a player sustained spinal injuries of a kind that the rules were designed to prevent, then the referee would be liable in law for that foreseeable result of his breach of duty, despite the fact that, quantified statistically, it was a result which was unlikely to occur. In the present case, there was clear evidence that the referee had not insisted on the strict observance of the proper rules of engagement during the match. As to (2), a volenti defence applied only to the ordinary incidents of a game of rugby of the kind in which the plaintiff was taking part, and the plaintiff could not be said to have consented to the breach of the rules which had occurred. The judge had not intended to open the door to a plethora of claims against referees by injured players, and it would remain difficult for a plaintiff, in the context of a hotly contested game of rugby, to establish that a referee had failed to exercise the care and skill reasonably to be expected of him. The judge was, however, entitled to conclude, on the very special facts of the present case, that the defendant was liable to the plaintiff, and the defendant’s appeal would, accordingly, be dismissed. Citation BLD 4444960286; (1996) Times, 8 December. Hearing Date 08 December 1996 Court Court of Appeal. Judge Lord Bingham of Cornhill CJ, Mummery LJ and Sir Brian Neill. Relevant Cases Decision of Curtis J (1996) Times, 23 April affirmed.