A common accident that befalls skiers is caused by the failure of the ski binding to open on a fall, causing the knee ligament to tear or the leg bone to break.The binding serves two opposite purposes.

First, it holds the skier to the ski so that force can be applied to the skis to make them turn.

But it should also release the skier if he or she falls.

Bindings are not designed to prevent falls but only to reduce the risk of injury from a fall.FITTING THE SKIIn fitting the ski, there are two types of adjustment to be made: the binding must be adjusted to fit the tow and the heel of the particular boots; and the settings on the toe piece and the heel piece must be adjusted to allow the release of the binding when a particular force is exerted on it.

The first of these is a mechanical operation and the second requires the skier to give details of height, age, weight, boot length and 'skiing type', which is slightly different from ability and experience although still a subjective question.

Fitness is rarely asked about or considered.Bindings are set to Din settings.

This standard scale of adjustment may well vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

A six in one make may be a 4.5 in another.EVIDENCEAfter a fall, the best evidence will be provided by the ski, boot and binding and these should be preserved for testing.

However, a skier does not often own all the equipment.

And even if the equipment is owned, the skier is not often able to give evidence that the equipment has not been tampered with between the time of the accident and the court case.Hired equipment is usually returned to the shop immediately after the accident.

And, even if the skis and equipment can be identified again, they will have been rented out with different settings the next day.

A shop can rarely provide evidence of the make of ski, type of binding, size of boot and the setting of hired equipment.When new boots, skis and bindings are bought and fitted in Germany, Austria or Switzerland these are almost always checked on a binding testing machine.

In France and England, this rarely happens and could constitute a breach of manufacturers' instructions.STANDARD OF PROOFThe plaintiff will probably have to produce medical evidence to show that, on the balance of probabilities, the failure of the binding to release caused the injury and not something else like, for example, falling on a rock.Following examination of X-rays, breaks in leg bones can sometimes be found to be consistent with binding failure.

However, tears to the knee ligaments are an inherent risk of skiing and can occur with perfectly adjusted modern equipment.Even if this hurdle can be overcome, the plaintiff must next show that, on the balance of probability, the binding failed to release because it was incorrectly adjusted by a third party or had a fault in manufacture.DRY SKI SLOPES AND SNOWBOARDINGSkiers and snowboarders take part in their sport at their own risk, according to the rules of conduct for skiers issued by the international body, the Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS).

The rules apply to snowboarders as well as to skiers and apply on dry ski slopes as well as on the snow.SKI SHOPSIt is difficult to hold ski shops liable for negligent supply and fitting of boots, skis and bindings because of the paucity of evidence combined with the difficulty of proving causation.

However, there may be a possibility that the shop did not follow the manufacturers' instructions.TOUR OPERATORSTour operators' booking conditions should also be checked.

When skis and boots are hired as part of the package, regulation 15 of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992 holds the tour company liable to the consumer in respect of the proper performance of the obligations of the contract, 'irrespective of whether such obligations are to be performed by that party or by other suppliers of services'.

It is important to ascertain whether the tour operator failed to provide proper services under the contract and whether it could be liable for the shop's failures, particularly if the tour operator's representative was not supervising the proper issuing and fitting of equipment.