SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline) - A California school district isn’t liable for a high-school football player's brain injury, an appeals court ruled, because his parents signed a complete release before the season started and there was no evidence coaches were guilty of gross negligence for failing to notice he was in distress.
“Stopping players and removing them every time they suffer a blow in a football game simply is not feasible,” said California’s Third Appellate District, in a March 29 decision. “In tackle football, tackles and falls are an inevitability and constantly stopping the game or pulling players to look every player in the eye every time they suffer a blow would interrupt the flow of the game.”
Nicholas Brown played 97 of 100 plays in a junior-varsity football game at Union Mine High School in August 2015, at a variety of positions including quarterback and receiver, before pulling himself out. Video shows he was tackled in his final play but there was no serious contact with his head, and he walked normally to the sideline.
A few minutes later, he collapsed as players were lining up to shake hands with the opposing team. A chiropractor present thought he was suffering from heat exhaustion but noticed hand motions suggesting neurological injury and called an ambulance. One arrived after about 10 minutes and at the hospital, the doctor noticed Brown’s left pupil was enlarged and treated him for a subdural hematoma, or brain bleed.
In 2016, a doctor diagnosed Nick with optic nerve damage to his left eye and said someone with appropriate training would have noticed the enlarged pupil immediately. His parents sued El Dorado Union School District, claiming negligence.
At a hearing to decide the district’s motion for summary judgment in 2018, the judge acknowledged both sides had objected to the pretrial evidence presented in “separate statements of the facts” for various reasons. But he ultimately decided the school district’s submissions “substantially complied with the statute.” The judge agreed with the school district that some of Brown’s expert opinions were inadmissible because they were based upon unauthenticated medical records.
The judge then dismissed the case, citing the fact Brown’s father, Read Brown, had signed a 500-word waiver, thus assuming the risk of injury on behalf of his son.
“In signing the release, Nick and Read unequivocally agreed to assume the risk of injuries caused by the negligent acts of the District employees in coaching and supervising Nick while he played football and in treating him for those injuries,” the appeals court ruled.
The court rejected comparisons to other cases including a 2003 California Supreme Court decision allowing a novice swim racer to sue her school after she broke her neck diving into the pool. In that case the coach recklessly pushed the girl to dive in a race even though he had previously told her she wouldn’t have to and she didn’t have proper training, the court said.
The court also rejected comparison to another case where a marathon was sued after a runner suffered a heart attack at the finish line and there were only chiropractors and EMTs, not doctors, available for care. But the chiropractors weren’t the problem, the appeals court said, it was that race organizers didn’t have enough caregivers period.