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Examples Of Negligence In Sports

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Upon being injured in his first rugby game, Jim Smith decided to sue his university for negligence. He believed that the school did not provide him with proper medical attention upon suffering a concussion during his game. Negligence can be defined as “failing to do something that a reasonable, prudent, and up-to-date person would have done under the same/similar conditions or doing something that a reasonable, prudent and up-to-date person would not have done” (Dougherty, Goldberger, & Carpenter, 2007, p. 187). Despite these acts being unintentional, one can seek compensation from the courts under tort law. For a tort lawsuit to be successful, it must have all four elements of negligence: duty, breach of duty, proximate cause, and loss. The …show more content…

The cause of the injury must have been foreseeable and a result of the breach of duty. An injury can be described as foreseeable if a reasonable person could have been able to predict it happening given the circumstances. Any sensible person would know that contact sports can to lead to various types of injuries. Regardless of these injuries being minor or major, medical personnel should be around sporting events to assess and treat said injuries. Jim was injured during the first half of the game, since there was no one there to assess his injuries he proceeded to play until he was physically unable to. Given medical personnel being on hand, he would have been assessed on the spot and given the medical attention he needed. Because any type of injury is foreseeable during contact sport and the lack of medical care on hand, there is a proximate cause for Jim’s injuries thus fulfilling the third element of …show more content…

Waivers are legally binding contracts which states that the coach or whoever else is in charge is not liable for any injuries. These hold up as defense in court, unless it is applied to gross negligence. Jim’s case files under gross negligence since the school made a “conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons,” (“gross negligence,” 2008). The University made the conscious decision to not make sure that there was medical assistance at the rugby game, knowing that some type of injury was bound to occur. Despite the school committing gross negligence, the school still has the defense of assumption of risk. It means that an individual recognizes that an activity comes with certain inherent risks. Inherent risks are risks that “cannot be eliminated without fundamentally altering the very nature of the activity” (Dougherty et al., 2007, p. 190). Rugby by nature is a violent contact sport, where the players have almost no padding to protect them. The only way to remove some of the risk of it would change the sport entirely. Given that Jim voluntarily decided to participate, was aware of the nature of the sport & what risks went along with it, and that his injury possibly could have come from the inherent risk not the negligence, the

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