I would guess that the jury thought some aspects of the defendant's behavior could be criticised, but in fact the injury was entirely the plaintiff's fault - the story does not assert that the negligence *caused* the injury. But I look to be corrected by anyone who knows more than what is in the BBC report.

S





-----Original Message-----
From: Dr Matt Dyson [mailto:matthew.dyson@law.ox.ac.uk]
Sent: Wednesday 30 May 2018 12:13
To: obligations@uwo.ca
Subject: Justice by sleight of hand?

Dear All,

An 'entertaining' example of disappearing damages: liability in negligence a magic trick which caused harm to a participant but that participant was 100% contributorily negligence. I've only seen the brief BBC report on David Copperfield's stunt, and the attempts to keep the details of how the trick was performed somewhat secret, others may know more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44298071

All best wishes,
Matt

--
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford; Tutorial Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, OX1 4JF
+44 1865 276724; matthew.dyson@law.ox.ac.uk
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