October is the perfect month for American sports fans.
This is because it is the month when games for the four major professional sports—American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey—are all held.
Fans watch the game on television or by phone, but there are also many people who enjoy exercising whenever they have free time.
From golf, which is widely enjoyed by Koreans, to early morning soccer, amateur baseball, table tennis, and bowling, sports are an essential leisure activity in our lives.
If you get injured while playing sports due to someone’s negligence, can you receive compensation?
For example, if you rupture a knee ligament due to a rough tackle by an opposing defender while playing soccer, can you receive medical expenses and compensation?
When an injury occurs while exercising, the standard applied by almost all courts in the United States is the logic of the ‘Assumption of Risk.’ The Assumption of Risk means that a participant in a sport assumes the ordinary risks inherent in the sport in which they are participating.
In soccer, tackling to stop an opposing attacker is extremely common. If you play soccer, you must be aware of the risk of getting injured by a tackle.
Therefore, it is difficult for a soccer player injured by an opposing team’s tackle to receive compensation.
In that case, is it possible to receive compensation if you are injured by a ball hit from behind during a round of golf?
The answer to this as well is ‘difficult’.
If the person who hit the ball from behind (the perpetrator) shouted “fore,” an expression used to warn the golfer in front to watch out for the ball flying toward them, it is difficult to win a lawsuit against the perpetrator. Additionally, the victim must prove that the perpetrator hit the ball high, aiming at their location.
There are also cases where people get injured while watching sports games. In particular, over the past few years, there have been frequent instances of spectators being injured by foul balls hit by players at baseball stadiums.
The aforementioned ‘doctrine of assumption of risk’ also applies when a baseball stadium spectator is injured or killed by a foul ball. This implies that since foul balls are a common occurrence in baseball games, fans seated in positions where a hard foul ball could travel must be aware of this and exercise caution themselves.
However, fans sitting right behind home plate, adjacent to the batter, do not have enough time to react properly if an incredibly fast foul ball comes flying at them, no matter how focused they are on the game. For this reason, protective netting is installed behind home plate in all baseball stadiums.
In sports or leisure activities, a stronger legal safeguard for defendants than the ‘doctrine of assumption of risk’ is a ‘waiver.’ A ‘waiver’ is the signing of a document stating that one will not hold the defendant legally liable for any injuries resulting from a leisure activity before engaging in such activity, where injury may occur.
If a waiver of rights is signed, it is difficult to win a lawsuit except in cases of intentional or serious negligence that is generally difficult to accept. Knowing this, most children’s play facilities and facilities with a risk of injury, such as skydiving, refuse entry to users who do not sign a waiver of rights.