In this article, Conor Askins discusses a recent County Court decision involving a personal injury claim arising out of a ski accident: Patel v Club Med SAS (unreported, DJ Mortimer, Hertford County Court, 19/05/2026).
Previously on “Local Standards”
You may remember other Travlaw articles such as “When Breaching Local Standards Is Not Enough To Win Your Case”, “Local Standards – Stepping In To The Dark” and “Local Standards – In It For The Long Fall”. This latest instalment swaps hotel floors and Egyptian ramps for the ski slopes of Val d’Isere, France.
Background
Ms Patel travelled to France on a package skiing holiday with Club Med. On the first day of her holiday, she participated in a group ski lesson. During the final run of the day, she fell whilst performing a turn and suffered a fractured ankle.
To succeed, Ms Patel needed to prove the standard expected of a reasonably competent ski instructor, that Club Med’s instructor breached that standard, and that the breach caused the accident. As with the previous cases in this series, the question was not whether the instructor met English standards, but whether he complied with the applicable local French standards.
The Claimant’s case was that the instructor pressured her to ski faster than she wanted to, asked her to perform turns beyond her ability, failed to account for changing conditions later in the day and then failed to provide appropriate assistance after the accident.
Expert Agreement – An Unusual Turn Of Events
The Claimant obtained an expert report by an expert witness who is a ski instructor and sports coaching consultant. The report was critical of the ski instructor for failing to take ‘adequate’ account of three factors: (a) the reduced visibility at the end of the day, (b) a reduction in temperature which may have impacted the Claimant’s speed and accuracy of movement, and (c) the Claimant’s fatigue with the accident happening at the end of the afternoon. The Claimant’s expert also explained that he thought the Claimant’s ski boots were likely inadequate due to the type of injury sustained, stating such injuries are not common as modern ski boots normally protect from such injuries.
Club Med obtained its own report from a snow-sport consultant and expert witness Richard Barbour. The Defendant’s expert found that the ski instructor did not breach the French local standards with respect to how he conducted the lesson. Rather, Barbour found it reasonable for the ski instructor to encourage students to ski faster and it was accepted that some speed was required to enable skiers to turn. Reference was also made to the instructor’s evidence, which estimated the Claimant was travelling at 3mph when the accident happened.
By the time the experts produced their Joint Statement, many of the Claimant’s allegations had largely fallen away. Indeed, the experts agreed on most of the key issues and were unable to identify any specific act or omission that fell below the standards expected of a competent French ski instructor.
They agreed that the instructor was suitably qualified and highly experienced, that the Claimant had been placed into the correct group, that the lesson structure was appropriate, that the piste was one of the easiest in the resort and that increasing speed forms a normal and necessary part of ski instruction.
Indeed, the experts were unable to identify any specific act or omission by the instructor that fell below the standards expected of a competent French ski instructor.
Was The Instructor Pushing Too Hard?
The central allegation was that the instructor had pressured the Claimant into skiing faster than she was comfortable with.
The instructor accepted that he encouraged her to increase her speed. His explanation was simple. Skiers need a minimum amount of speed to perform turns effectively. According to his evidence, the Claimant was skiing extremely slowly and he merely encouraged a modest increase in pace to facilitate turning.
The Judge preferred the instructor’s evidence. The Court accepted that encouraging greater speed was a normal part of ski instruction, that the speeds involved were very low, that the instructor did not place the Claimant under improper pressure and did not ask her to do anything beyond her ability.
In short, there is a significant difference between encouraging a pupil to develop their skills and negligently pushing them beyond their limits.
Environmental Factors – Into Thin Air
The Claimant’s expert suggested that factors such as fatigue, visibility and temperature may have impacted the Claimant’s performance later in the day.
This line of attack encountered something of an avalanche from the Defendant…
The Claimant never said she was fatigued. She accepted visibility was not a problem. There was no evidence that temperature played any role and no expert identified any local standard requiring the instructor to do something differently. The Claimant’s expert also watered down his views on the ski boots being a potential cause of the injury and the Claimant did not suggest that this was a possible cause during her evidence.
Perhaps most damagingly, the Claimant’s own expert stopped short of criticising the instructor in the Joint Statement and ultimately left the matter for the Court to decide.
Skiers Fall Over
The judgment also contains an important reminder about causation.
Even if the Judge had found a breach of duty, the claim would still have failed because there was no evidence that any alleged breach caused the accident. The Judge observed that ‘the fact of the fall alone does not prove negligence. Skiing is a risky sport and skiers fall over. The evidence does not establish that the fall was anything other an unfortunate occurrence that is part of the risks associated with skiing.’
The evidence simply did not establish why the Claimant fell. The accident may have resulted from speed, turning technique, loss of balance, ordinary skier error or an inherent risk of the sport. The Court was not prepared to speculate.
Judgment
The claim was dismissed in its entirety. The Court found no breach of duty, no criticism of the ski instruction, no criticism arising from environmental conditions and no evidence that any alleged breach caused the accident.
Key Takeaways
- Identifying the local standards remains critical. However, there is no ‘one glove fits all’ approach to this. In the three previous cases in this series, the claims were successfully defended without the Defendant’s obtaining their own expert evidence. In this case, however, the Defendant did obtain their own expert evidence – and the expert was decisive in order to stop the Judge going off-piste.
- Claimants must show a breach of the local standards. Negligence cannot be assumed simply because an accident occurs on holiday. It is not enough to allege that an instructor ‘could’ have done something differently. The Claimant must prove that the supervision fell below the local standards.
- Even if a breach can be established, the Claimant must still show that this caused the accident. The Claimant had nothing to support this, beyond speculation from their expert that low lighting, fatigue and temperature may have contributed to the accident. The Claimant’s witness evidence, however, did not support such a conclusion. The Claimant therefore faced an uphill battle at Court…
Judges are unlikely to find fault simply because an instructor encourages progression. Sometimes accidents are just accidents.
This article was originally published on: 23 July 2026
