There has been a mixed reaction to a High Court ruling that a French ski instructor is liable to pay more than £1m in damages to a British client, paralysed after crashing into a tree in the Alps.

Graham Anderson was on his third family holiday with tour operator Snowbizz in the resort of Puy St Vincent when the accident happened.

Delivering judgement in Anderson v M and J Lyotier and Portejoie (awaiting publication), Mr. Justice Foskett said there was no suggestion that the Snowbizz partnership was at fault.

He said the issue was whether Jerome Portejoie, the instructor, should have permitted or encouraged Anderson to ski in the off piste area where the accident happened.

“The potential for serious injury is clear,” the judge said. “The potential for serious injury when impacting with a tree is obvious. Clearly if the impact is with a young and flexible sapling, a serious injury would not normally be foreseeable. But any tree of stature or substance must present a risk.”

Mr Justice Foskett said it would be wrong to hold that a skier “abdicates all responsibility” for deciding whether or not to do something suggested by the instructor.

He said adult skiers must say something to avoid the suggestion they are not taking sufficient care of their own safety, before ruling that Portejoie was two-thirds responsible for the accident, the claimant one-third responsible.

In his concluding remarks, he said “Everyone recognises that skiing is an inherently risky pastime and accidents causing injuries, sometimes very serious, will occur, more often then not without negligence being established on the part of anyone involved.”