On Wednesday, Paralympian Emily Tapp was awarded $6.75 million in damages for an injury sustained during a campdrafting event in Ellerston in 2011.

Ms Tapp fell from her horse, leaving her paraplegic, and the High Court ruled that the organisers knew that there was a risk of serious injury to competitors.

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John Potter, a director at Wagga law firm Commins Hendriks, brought the case on behalf of Ms Tapp and said that the organisers of the three-day event did not plough and aerate the arena surface in accordance with safety rules.

As a result, the arena became slippery and dangerous for competitors.

"The evidence was that at most campdrafts there are no falls, this particular day there were a total of seven falls," Mr Potter said.

Organisers ignored repeated complaints and calls for the event to be postponed, until disaster struck and Ms Tapp was catastrophically injured.

Ms Tapp sued the Australian Bushmen's Campdraft and Rodeo Association for negligence.

The case was tried twice before it made its way to the High Court - the NSW Supreme Court dismissed her case in 2019, and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision the following year.

Mr Potter said that the previous failures were down to the way the Civil Liability Act was traditionally interpreted.

"It had a provision in it that if someone was injured in a dangerous recreational activity then they couldn't bring any claim for damages because they were deemed to have assumed the risks associated with that activity," he said.

"That went right through from motorbike riding to horse riding to push bike riding, ballroom dancing and a whole range of activities."

Mr Potter had a different interpretation.

He contended that if a person, such as Ms Tapp, was injured through a risk that wasn't usually associated with the activity, they ought to be entitled to make a claim for damages. Ultimately the court agreed, which could have huge implications for other victims of similar injuries.

"There are quite a large number of people who have brought cases and lost, because of [the old interpretation] and those cases were not taken to the High Court ... as a result of this decision they would be in a position to revisit their situation," he said.

"The nature of that decision will have implications in all states of Australia, because what the High Court says, goes."

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