TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) - A field hockey player who was hit in the head by a soccer ball that flew in from an adjacent athletic field can sue her coach for holding practice in the wrong place, New Jersey’s highest court ruled, rejecting a stricter standard the court established for suing over other types of sports injuries.
Morgan Dennehy sued her coach, the East Windsor Board of Education, Hightstown High School and others after an errant soccer ball sailed over a 20-foot net and landed on her skull during a warm-up session in 2015. She accused the coach, Dezarae Fillmyer, of negligently holding practice too close to the soccer field.
A trial court dismissed the case, citing the New Jersey Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Crawn v. Campo, which held that a catcher in a pickup softball game had to allege a runner who slid into him engaged in “reckless or intentional conduct” in order to sue. The state high court justified the heightened standard of care as being necessary to support “the promotion of vigorous participation in athletic activities” and avoid of “a flood of litigation.”
The court later expanded the doctrine to other sports and Crawn’s logic has been applied to applied to a collision between a snowboarder and a skier and even between skydivers.
The court refused to extend Crawn to a misguided soccer ball, however. In a decision by Judge Clarkson Fisher that was supported by the New Jersey trial lawyers’ association, the court ruled that Dennehy and her coach weren’t “participants” as defined in its previous cases. The court rejected a comparison to another case where a karate student was “participating” in the sport when his instruction kicked him in the head.
“There is no allegation that Fillmyer was wielding a field hockey stick or otherwise actively engaged in the preliminary practice with her players when plaintiff’s injury occurred; short of that, there is no basis upon which a factfinder could conclude Fillmyer was participating,” the court concluded. “Plaintiff’s claim is based only on Fillmyer’s supervisory role in selecting the timing and location of the team’s informal practice.”
In that regard, the court said, the case was no different than a lawsuit over a teacher’s decision to take her class to study marine life at the beach. “
In these and other similar settings, parents have the right to expect that teachers and coaches will exercise reasonable care when in charge of their children and that courts will not immunize a teacher’s negligence by imposing a higher standard of care,” the court said. It declined to comment on whether the state’s tort claims law, which immunizes government officials against some of their decisions, would have an impact on this case.