Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘sports’

“The timorous may stay at home”

John Caher in the New York Law Journal discusses the views of Benjamin Cardozo on assumption of risk:

Assumption of risk in cases arising from athletic or recreational activities is a principle that has been part of New York law at least since 1929, when in Murphy v. Steeplechase Amusement Co., 250 NY 479, Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo said that one who “takes part in … sport accepts the dangers that inhere in it so far as they are obvious and necessary.” That case involved a plaintiff who fell from an amusement park ride called “The Flopper” and suffered a leg injury.

“Nothing happened to the plaintiff except what common experience tells us may happen at any time as the consequence of a sudden fall,” Cardozo wrote in reversing the Appellate Division, 1st Department. “Many a skater or a horseman can rehearse a tale of equal woe… . One might as well say that a skating rink should be abandoned because skaters sometimes fall.” He added: “The timorous may stay at home.”

(“Panel Rules Hurt Olympic Skater Assumed ‘Inherent Risk’ of Sport”, May 1). Declarations and Exclusions (Apr. 7) and Rick Karcher (May 22) have more on some recent assumption-of-risk cases in California, including a 6-1 decision by the state’s high court ruling that a college baseball player could not sue over a “bean ball”. See Mike McKee, “Calif. Supreme Court: Ballplayer Can’t Sue for Bean Ball”, The Recorder, Apr. 10.

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Errant golf balls, cont’d

Reader Matt Manor sums up this Newsday article about a controversy in Hewlett Harbor, Long Island: “Golf club loses suit on errant balls, faces injunction to end them, erects large net to comply, and is promptly sued by homeowners who think the net is ugly. You can’t win.” (William Murphy, “Golf course can’t seem to hit straight”, May 24). More on errant golf balls: May 24, Oct. 6, 2004 (Australia).

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“Golfer not liable for errant golf ball”

Assumption of risk wins one in Hawaii: “A golfer may not be held liable for mistakenly hitting another golfer with an errant golf ball, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled.” Ryan Yoneda sued after being hit in the left eye by Andrew Tom’s wayward ball at Mililani Golf Course, but “Chief Justice Ronald Moon wrote Yoneda assumed the risk of the injury when he played golf.” However, the court did allow a lawsuit to proceed against the course owner on grounds of negligent design. (AP/San Francisco Chronicle, May 16; Ken Kobayashi, “Golf at your own risk, court rules”, Honolulu Advertiser, May 15).

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Baseball club to hold “Frivolous Lawsuit Night”

From a May 17 news release by the Eastern League Altoona Curve:

ALTOONA- Inspired by a Los Angeles Angels fan who filed a lawsuit against the club because he did not receive a red nylon tote bag as part of the major league club’s Mother’s Day promotion last May [see May 11], the Altoona Curve have announced that they will be holding Salute to Frivolous Lawsuit Night as part of their Sunday, July 2nd game at Blair County Ballpark.

The Curve’s salute to all ridiculous lawsuits ever filed will include the following:

* A Pink Tote Bag Giveaway to the first 137 men in attendance ages 18 and over

* The first 137 women 18 and over will receive lukewarm coffee so they will not burn themselves [see Oct. 20, 2005]

* The first 137 kids will be given a beach ball with a warning not to ingest it

* Angels merchandise and novelty items given away throughout the game

* Honoring some of history’s “Most Frivolous Lawsuits” during the game

A grand prize drawing in which one fan will receive a “clue” and their own frivolous lawsuit.

Read On…

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Baseball stats, cont’d

Updating our Apr. 12, 2005 post: Does it violate the rights of Major League Baseball when the rest of us conduct “fantasy baseball” leagues employing the names and statistics of actual players? A lawsuit making such contentions is now heading, notes Ron Coleman (May 17), “into the bottom of the ninth”. (Alan Schwarz, “Baseball Is a Game of Numbers, but Whose Numbers Are They?”, New York Times, May 16; Legal Fixation (IP blog); Infamy or Praise) (via Blawg Review #58 at Kevin Heller’s Tech Law Advisor).

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Duke lacrosse case, cont’d

Thomas Sowell nominates the controversy’s low point:

According to Newsweek, the young man at NCCU [North Carolina Central University] said that he wanted to see the Duke students prosecuted, “whether it happened or not. It would be justice for things that happened in the past.”

(“The Biggest Scandal in the Duke University Rape Case”, syndicated/Capitalism Magazine, May 17). The comment was hardly representative of anyone’s views but the one student’s, though, contends John Schwade in the Durham News (“Article opts to sensationalize with its color commentary”, Apr. 29). More: Dr. Helen, Apr. 22. Stuart Taylor Jr. has a powerful column on the subject which however is online only to National Journal/The Atlantic subscribers (“An Outrageous Rush to Judgment”, May 2). And guess who’s involved himself in the case, as an advisor to the complainant’s family? None other than ace money-extractor Willie Gary, long familiar to readers of this site (Wendy McElroy, “Is ‘Duke’ Case Headed to Civil Court?”, FoxNews.com, May 16).

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Where’s his Mother’s Day present?

More entrepreneurial lawyering in California:

A Los Angeles psychologist who was denied a tote bag during a Mother’s Day giveaway at an Angel game is suing the baseball team, alleging sex and age discrimination.

Michael Cohn’s class-action claim in Orange County Superior Court alleges that thousands of males and fans under 18 were “treated unequally” at a “Family Sunday” promotion last May and are entitled to $4,000 each in damages.

(Dave McKibben, “L.A. Psychologist Who Didn’t Get Tote Bag at Mother’s Day Angel Game Files Lawsuit”, Los Angeles Times, May 11). Cohn’s attorney is Alfred Rava, who (as the L.A. Times really should have found out by Googling Overlawyered, if not its own archives) was among the key figures in the 2003 spree by which owners of San Diego nightspots were hit up for handsome cash settlements for having held “Ladies’ Night” promotions. The Unruh Act, California’s distinctively liberal civil rights statute, allows complainants to demand $4,000 a pop for such misdeeds, and it’s no defense to suggest that the customer’s primary reason for getting involved in the underlying transaction may have been to set up the $4,000 entitlement. More: “Lex Icon” wishes to make clear that he’s not the kind of lawyer who files cases like this (May 13).

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“Chicago Schools Sue Over Breakup of League”

“Two predominantly black school districts are suing over the breakup of a suburban Chicago athletic league, saying racism led more than two dozen high schools to pull out and create their own, predominantly white leagues.” But an “attorney for several of the school districts leaving [the South Inter-Conference Association] said any charge that the breakup was racially motivated is ‘utter nonsense.’ He said the move was based on geography and school rivalries and had been discussed for several years. … ‘We are being deprived the opportunity to compete against other children and other different ethnicities,’ said Thornwood High School student Constance Stanley, who said her suburban Chicago speech team won’t have the same breadth of competition now.” (Mike Colias, AP/Washington Post, Apr. 21).

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Dad Loses Suit Alleging Abusive Coach

Chalk another one up to the judicial ref.

A judge has made it safe again for high school coaches to lose their tempers, tossing out a lawsuit that accused a coach of inflicting “emotional distress” on a softball player by calling her “a 2-year-old.” (Arcadia, CA, Apr.4)

Attorney Michael Oddenino filed the lawsuit in October, alleging that Riggio yelled at his daughter when she played on the JV team last spring. He named Riggio, varsity Coach Ed Andersen and the Arcadia Unified School District in the lawsuit. He sought $3 million for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, a civil rights violation, and sex discrimination.The suit alleged that Riggio “took advantage of his position of authority to engage in an abusive pattern of excessive intimidation and humiliation of the female players, frequently calling them `idiots,’ and belittling them for minor errors.”

Oddenino is a family law lawyer who specializes in child custody issues. Go figure.

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Gym didn’t have defibrillator

…so a Florida jury ordered it to pay $619,650 to the family of a Fort Lauderdale customer who had a heart attack. A spokesman for L.A. Fitness says it wasn’t common, let alone legally mandatory, for health clubs to stock defibrillators in 2003, when the incident occurred. (Jon Burstein, “Gym told to pay $619,650 in man’s death because it didn’t have a defibrillator”, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Mar. 30)(hat tip: Florida Masochist).

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