A Canberra court has confirmed a $4.6 million payout for a law student left quadriplegic after an accident while skylarking during a university outing.
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Mr Ackland, then 21, was studying law at the University of New England in Armidale when he went on a mystery bus tour to the Tingha fun park.
He attempted to perform back somersaults on "jumping pillow", an inflatable pillow designed to be jumped on like a trampoline.
He was rendered quadriplegic when he suffered a serious neck injury after landing on his head.
In an ACT Supreme Court judgment handed down last year, Justice Burns found the park had been negligent by failing to prohibit inverted manoeuvres on the jumping pillow, not providing signage advising of the ban, and should have told Mr Ackland to stop before he attempted the trick.
The judge ordered he receive $4,626,241.84 in compensation to cover loss of the future earnings, past and future medical expenses, housing and other care costs.
But the Green Valley Farm appealed, arguing Mr Ackland's injuries had occurred while he was taking part in an obviously dangerous recreational activity.
The fun park said the judge had erred in relation to the content of any duty of care, and causation.
But Mr Ackland, represented by Maurice Blackburn, argued he had not been engaged in a dangerous recreational activity, the risk that materialised was not an obvious risk, and the fun park's negligence had caused the injuries.
The appeal judges – Justice Hilary Penfold, Acting Justice Stephen Walmsley, and Acting Justice David Robinson - unanimously threw out the appeal on Thursday.
"I cannot see any error in the process by which his Honour concluded, or in his conclusion, that the risk of serious neck injury was not an obvious risk of the activity engaged in by the respondent," Justice Penfold wrote.
"As the people offering this facility to their visitors, the appellants had in my view a duty at least to respond to the information they received in that capacity by passing on to their visitors any recommended warnings from the manufacturers.
"The appellants had what might have been important information for their visitors about the dangers of the jumping pillow and they neglected to act on it, either by prohibiting the activity concerned or even by passing on the warnings."
