Injuries At School Sporting Events – Who Is Liable?

Originally published by Herrman & Herrman, P.L.L.C..

Sporting events are part of school life for kids. A lot of children look forward to it for the swell time they’ll have and the break it affords them from classes. We all hope for these sporting events be it Basketball, Swimming, Football, and other sporting activities to go well. things do not always turn out the way we’ve planned them and accidents can occur. Now in the case that an accident occurs, it can be very tricky deciding who is liable. Sport-related injuries often cost a whole lot to treat. This is why deciding who is liable is an important decision because this is who the bill falls to.

Some common sports-related injury that students are in risk of are listed below:

• Exhaustion and Fatigue
• Bone fractures and sprained joints
• Concussion or other head-traumas
• Severe paralyzing injuries like spinal injury

These are just a few off the list of injuries students can suffer during a sporting activity. It is imperative to state the difficulty in filing a lawsuit against a school when your child gets injured. It is difficult because the law assumes the participants are conscious of the ‘inherent risks’ linked with sporting activities. In other words, the law assumes participants know what they were getting into when they signed up for a sport. Some factors make it difficult to hold a school responsible for the eventuality of a child getting injured. Some of those factors are:

Public schools are shielded from liability for sports-related injuries. This is because they are regarded as a government agency.

Some schools get athletes to sign a waiver containing a release clause that exempts them from being liable for any injury that is regarded as an inherent risk of that particular sport. Schools are not allowed however, to waive risks that are not considered intrinsic to the sport.

 

There is a case that can make a school completely liable for a child’s sports-related injury. Even though schools are generally protected from liability for an athlete’s sporting injuries, they have a duty of care to students. If they are found in violation of this duty of care, they can be sued successfully. This means that if it can be proven that the school was negligent, they can be held liable for a child’s sports-related injury.

There is no direct answer to the question of who is liable in the case of a kid getting injured during a sports-related activity. An outstanding point, however, is that the law does seem to shield the school more, in which case, the child’s medical bills don’t fall on their account.

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