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El Cajon Sports Injury Lawyers

Injured While Participating in Sports in El Cajon?

Californians are active and our climate permits outdoor sports to be played throughout the year, which may help to explain why recreational and competitive sports are so popular in California. K-12 students, college students, and adults participate in sports throughout the state on many different levels. Unfortunately, along with sports sometimes come sports injuries. Often sports injuries are just bad luck, but sometimes those injuries are a direct result of someone else’s negligent or intentional conduct.

Negligence and Sports Injuries

In most cases, a child participating in sports is going to be owed a greater duty of care than an adult participating in sports. Children are more vulnerable than adults and that means that schools, coaches, and sports organizations likely owe a greater duty of care to children participating in sports programs. For example, youth sports coaches have more responsibility to watch out for child participants and dangers that children may not be mature enough to appreciate. See below for examples of negligence in youth sports injury cases:

• A coach fails to take a child out of a game or practice when he or she is injured.
• A coach does not stop practice or allow rest for an overly tired or dehydrated player.
• A sports coach allowing or encouraging play that is too rough.
• A school is aware of or fails to investigate claims that a coach is encouraging or allowing potentially harmful activities to take place.
• A coach orders unsafe practices or fails to ensure safe practices.

Negligence and Adult Sports

In most cases, adult sports participants will be owed a lower duty of care than children, but that does not mean they are not owed any duty of care. Cases where a defendant has breached a duty of care to an adult sports participant include some of the following:

• A recreational club is aware or should be aware of unsafe conditions that are unknown to players, yet fails to notify them.
• A recreational club is aware of a player’s repeated unsafe conduct during games, but fails to take appropriate measures to stop the unsafe conduct from continuing.
• A recreational club fails to maintain facilities and equipment.

Liability Waivers

Often people who sign liability waivers assume that they are out of luck if they or their child is injured while playing sports. Waivers may waive some liability for schools, coaches, other players, and sports organizations, but liability for injuries resulting from certain conduct including recklessness, gross negligence or intentional bad acts may not be enforceable. If you or your child has suffered a sports injury due to someone else’s fault, contact El Cajon personal injury attorney, Eugene G. Bruno, to schedule a consultation.