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Striking the right balance

11 February 2010 / Lucy Wyles
Issue: 7404 / Categories: Features , Professional negligence
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Lucy Wyles reports on three cases which revisit the fundamental principles of the law of negligence

One of the most rewarding aspects of the common law is the rich and varied diet of factual and legal situations that it provides for our delectation. This article examines three of this winter’s decisions on liability issues, in which fundamental principles were considered against particularly colourful or unusual backgrounds.

In Parker v TUI UK Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 1261, [2009] All ER (D) 305 (Nov) Mrs Parker was injured when taking part in an evening tobogganing event in Austria. She had completed the toboggan run, but then remounted her toboggan, lost control of it on an icy road and careered into a barrier of frozen straw bales. She and the other participants had been told that at the end of the run they had to get off the toboggans and walk down to the place where they were to return the toboggans. Mrs Parker said that she had got back on to the toboggan because the road

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