THE primary school which organised horse riding during which a student with an intellectual disability fell and broke her leg has been cleared of liability.
The now teenaged-girl was participating in a school-led program at the Riding School for the Disabled near Raymond Terrace.
The young girl lives with a severe intellectual disability, global developmental delay, cerebral palsy and autism.
After the accident at the riding centre in May, 2019, she lost the ability to walk.
Her family is claiming damages for negligence against Riding for the Disabled Association (NSW), who employed the coach, and oversaw the unpaid volunteers in charge of riding on the day.
The NSW Department of Education was joined as a second defendant because, it was argued, the girl was in the care of Maitland's Hunter River Community School when she fell from the horse, and the school's duty of care to her was "non delegable".
But the Supreme Court has found that the two school teachers who accompanied students to Raymond Terrace, and on the ride itself, were not responsible for the accident, or for preventing it, or keeping the children safe.
The girl broke her leg when she fell from a horse on September 12, 2019, at the Irrawang Equestrian Complex.
She had been riding at the facility on eight earlier occasions that same year in June, July and August.
Two teachers from the school went with the children to the riding centre on each visit and walked along with the horses and volunteers.
On this occasion, the girl became 'fidgety' and tried to take her helmet off and pull her feet out of the stirrups and her horse had to be stopped repeatedly to put her helmet back on, and re-position her feet.
There was an adult leading the girl's horse, and a volunteer walking the horse on her right, but there was no second 'side walker', Justice Desmond Fagan determined after hearing evidence from numerous witnesses.
It was after the group entered a space known as the 'Sensory Garden' that the girl's foot came out of the stirrups again, and she slid slowly off the horse and broke her leg.
The court heard that when the girl first started in the riding program, she was assigned two side walkers to assist her. While staff at the Riding School decided she had progressed, and no longer needed two side walkers, the judge disagreed saying she did not have that capacity.
The judge described the staff and volunteers involved as people of great kindness, who had dedicated themselves to enhancing the lives of disabled children.
The school teachers had chosen a specialty that called for immense patience and compassion, he said.
"Their willingness, and that of the school principal, Ms Tracey Rapson, to facilitate participation by (the girl and her peers') ... says a great deal about their imaginative and thoughtful approach to their work, their deeply caring professionalism and their commitment to the children in their charge," Justice Fagan said.
The not-for-profit Riding for the Disabled was supported by volunteers, whose kindness and generosity was also self-evident, he said, making his position "unenviable".
But he found that the girl's injury resulted from failure to take the 'reasonable precaution' of ensuring she had two side walkers at all times.
She could not be expected reliably to keep both feet in the stirrups, or to replace a foot in a stirrup when asked, and she was vulnerable to falling.
The activity was entirely independent of the school, and it did not provide staff to "supervise the plaintiff while participating".
Damages are yet to be assessed. The matter is back in court on November 1.
