While a career in sports may seem like all fun and games, recreation professionals must be prepared to handle stressful situations, too. When an athlete trips over a sprinkler head during a game, do you have to cover their medical bills? When a drunken member of the crowd sneaks liquor into the stands and injures another person, is your agency at fault? If an unsecured ladder falls on a volunteer coach, will he or she win a negligence lawsuit?
The United States tends to be a litigious country, so a proper understanding of the legal responsibilities your agency may have is very important. Chapter 18 does a great job, though, of “scratching the surface” and explaining many of the basics that recreational sport programmers should consider. This week’s assignment helps us learn from the past by examining some of the horror stories that have taken place during sporting events. Your goal is to research and share two stories which have brought on litigation as well as identify how the situations could have/ should have turned out differently.
Provide a short text description and a working hyperlink to a story that happened within the last ten years (2003- forward) in the United States. For example, if this were in the US….”Soccer players accidentally kill the referee” (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/03/sport/football/dutch-linesman-killed-football)
What is/ are the specific name(s) of the sports agencies involved in this event? What role(s) do they play? Is it (are they) partially or fully legally responsible? Why or why not?
Using the four-part burden of proof to establish negligence, explain this situation at each step. Could any party be held liable for negligence? Defend your answer.
What could the sports agency have done differently, or should change in the future, to prevent an issue similar to this from happening again? Be comprehensive; list everything you can think of that could help. (Then repeat steps 1-4 for the second story.)
One of the two stories must be a previous lawsuit based on an incident in recreational sports. For the second story, happy hunting– any sports (professional, collegiate, Olympic, etc) are fair game!
The assignment should include:
Description and hyperlink
Agencies identified
Responsible?
Negligence
Suggestions
