A national campdrafting organisation has been ordered to pay more than $6 million in damages to a woman who became a paraplegic after falling from her horse during a competition in 2011.
Emily Tapp was 19 when she fell in slippery conditions during an event at Ellerston, near Scone, in the New South Wales Hunter region.
Campdrafting is a uniquely Australian sport where riders chase cattle around a course, often at full gallop.
Ms Tapp went through eight months of hospital treatment and three years of rehabilitation after the heavy fall.
She took the case to the Supreme Court in 2019, seeking damages from the Australian Bushmen's Campdraft & Rodeo Association (ABCRA), which organises competitions.
The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the ABCRA, and Ms Tapp then took the case to the Court of Appeal, which also dismissed it in 2020.
Ms Tapp elevated the case to the High Court last year, which today ordered that those previous decisions be set aside, and for the ABCRA to award her $6.75 million in compensation.
"This result will enable her to provide herself with proper housing, medical care and hopefully look after her into the future," Ms Tapp's solicitor John Potter said.
Ms Tapp's legal team said organisers should have called off the competition when the ground conditions deteriorated and became "dangerous".
"What the High Court ultimately looked at very closely was [that] there were so many falls in the hour prior to Emily's.
"Despite warnings [from competitors], the committee decided, on two separate occasions, to press on.
"And after that second decision was made, Emily was the next rider to compete, and her horse also fell, resulting in disastrous consequences for her."
The ABCRA had argued that campdrafting was a sport that came with obvious risks and it had not breached its duty of care.
The organisation is yet to comment on the ruling.
"Significant change in law"
It is a major win for Ms Tapp who grew up on a remote cattle property in the Northern Territory.
Her solicitor said it was also a significant development in injury law, as competitors in the past had "no right" to damages despite how an injury occurred.
"The law will remain that every person involved in that sort of activity assumes a risk but what this decision does is elevate the assessment of that risk," he said.
"Whether it's an obvious risk to a competitor or whether it is not, and that is certainly a significant change in the law."
Since her accident, she has represented Australia as a Paralympian and won silver in the women's para-triathlon at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Mr Potter said Ms Tapp and her family were "certainly grateful" for the decision.
"She's a very strong and determined young woman," he said.
