14yo LL Player sued by coach for celebration

[Sweet Lou]

Re: the original post, if the coach tripped and caused the accident than I agree he should not be suing.

To be fair, I'm not 100% sure this is what happened but I'm inferring it from the articles, his interview and the actual injury. It sounds like the kid who tossed his helmet was the trail run on the play who didn't matter and was celebrating his team win and the coach just didn't see the helmet he tossed and "got hurt". I assuming the kid didn't slam it down on the back of his achiles and rupture the tendon, in fact I'm not even sure something like that is possible.

Yeah neighbors can be a pain. So glad I haven't had any run ins like you have with them. Most of my neighbors are pretty cool but if it ever came to $$$ that's when you get to see how folks really are.

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

Let me play devil's advocate here. Why shouldn't the kids homeowner's policy cover the coaches injuries. Doesn't the family have an obligation to try and help the person that their son injured? I know if one of my family members injured someone else that I would take responsibility for my kid's actions (whether it was an accident or not) and go through my own homeowners insurance or at least work out some sort of restitution for the coaches medical bills or help pay the coaches deductible for his homeowners insurance claim or do something.

The short answer is that, to encourage vigorous participation in activities, courts in CA have ruled since 1992 or so that you cannot sue someone when you are injured by risks inherent in activities. Here, thrown balls, bats, and even helmet are foreseeable risks that a coach (considered a participant) assumes by participating. The original case for this doctrine involved an idiot who was waterskiing backwards and barefoot in a river when he got hurt. Its called Primary Assumption of the Risk. There are exceptions but this one was pretty obvious IMO. Had the kid tried to injure him, then its a different story. But not when a kid is acting like most kids his age do

 

[Momo'sDad]

Plaintiff has dropped case and will pay defendant $1500 in costs:

Coach withdraws lawsuit against Granite Bay Little Leaguer | The Press Tribune Newspaper

 

[MTR]

His attorney is in Santa Ana (So Cal) because I bet no local attorney (in NorCal) wanted to deal with this. Funny, I'm in law school and one of our test questions was a baseball player getting in an argument with a base umpire near the baseline and then in anger, throwing his helmet into the ground with such force that it bounced up and into the stands hitting a spectator and injuring her. Answer to test question was unlikely to be found liable because flying helmets, bats & balls are an inherent risk of being at a baseball game. If that's true for a spectator, not much hope for a coach on the field.

Actually, that isn't true. Most rule sets include a rule which requires the player to wear the helmet properly and there is often a penalty for removing it during play.