In Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296, the California Supreme Court held that the doctrine of primary assumption of risk precluded an injured athlete from seeking damages from other participants in the competition when the injury arose from the normal risks of the sport. Only conduct involving intentional injury or reckless disregard for safety gives rise to liability among coparticipants in a sporting event.
In a new decision, the Court has expanded the assumption of risk defense by making it available to coaches and sports instructors.
In the present case, we recognize that the relationship of a sports instructor or coach to a student or athlete is different from the relationship between coparticipants in a sport. But because a significant part of an instructor’s or coach’s role is to challenge or 'push' a student or athlete to advance in his or her skill level and to undertake more difficult tasks, and because the fulfillment of such a role could be improperly chilled by too stringent a standard of potential legal liability, we conclude that the same general standard should apply in cases in which an instructor’s alleged liability rests primarily on a claim that he or she challenged the player to perform beyond his or her capacity or failed to provide adequate instruction or supervision before directing or permitting a student to perform a particular maneuver that has resulted in injury to the student. A sports instructor may be found to have breached a duty of care to a student or athlete only if the instructor intentionally injures the student or engages in conduct that is reckless in the sense that it is 'totally outside the range of the ordinary activity' [citation] involved in teaching or coaching the sport.
(Underscoring added.)
In the case before the Court, the plaintiff was a 14-year old member of a junior varsity swim team who broke her neck when she took a practice dive into shallow water at a competitive swim meet. She sued her school district and coach for those injuries. The defendants moved for and were granted summary judgment based on the doctrine of assumption of risk: the plaintiff, they argued, had been injured solely because of a risk inherent in her chosen sport, for which the defendants should not be liable. The intermediate Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment for defendants. The California Supreme Court found that the lower courts were correct in deciding that the assumption of risk doctrine was available to coaches and instructors as a defense.
However, the Court reversed the judgment and remanded the case for trial, holding that it was improper to grant summary judgment on the record before it. The injured plaintiff's opposition papers, the Court found, included evidence that, if believed, could establish that the defendant coach had acted recklessly in exposing the plaintiff to the risks of shallow-water diving with insufficient training in proper technique. That evidence gave rise to an issue of fact that must go to trial, and was not appropriately resolved by means of summary judgment. On remand, the plaintiff can attempt to prove (and the defendants to disprove) that the coach had crossed the line into irresponsible or reckless acts that would warrant imposition of damages.
The decision in Kahn v. East Side Union High School District (Aug. 28, 2003) Case No. S105735, can be found at these links in PDF and Word formats.
Continuation:
As in most jurisdictions, summary judgment can be granted under California law only if the party seeking judgment in its favor demonstrates that there is no triable issue -- i.e., no conflict in the evidence -- as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The Supreme Court found that the coach and school district in this case had proposed the right legal standard, and that they would be entitled to judgment in their favor if their version of the facts were ultimately accepted. However, the Court found that the plaintiff's evidence would, if believed, defeat the defendants' argument. THe Court summarized the evidence and the issues of fact that precluded summary judgment as follows:
We conclude that the totality of the circumstances precludes the grant of defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Specifically, we refer to evidence of defendant coach’s failure to provide plaintiff with training in shallow-water diving, his awareness of plaintiff’s intense fear of diving into shallow water, his conduct in lulling plaintiff into a false sense of security by promising that she would not be required to dive at competitions, his last-minute breach of this promise in the heat of a competition, and his threat to remove her from competition or at least from the meet if she refused to dive. Plaintiff’s evidence supports the conclusion that the maneuver of diving into a shallow racing pool, if not done correctly, poses a significant risk of extremely serious injury, and that there is a well-established mode of instruction for teaching a student to perform this maneuver safely. The declarations before the trial court raise a disputed issue of fact as to whether defendant coach provided any instruction at all to plaintiff with regard to the safe performance of such a maneuver, as well as to the existence and nature of the coach’s promises and threats. Under these circumstances, the question whether the coach’s conduct was reckless in that it fell totally outside the range of ordinary activity involved in teaching or coaching this sport cannot properly be resolved on summary judgment.
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