Q: My daughter was injured during a college soccer game -- intramural -- is the college liable in any way?
A: Depends on how she was injured. If another player slide-tackled her, no, the college would not be liable. If she tripped over a sprinkler head that was improperly installed/maintained or something else related to the college, then potentially.
A:
I agree with Mr. Stevens. Just to state his point another way, liability requires some act of negligence. Since soccer, by the nature of the game, carries some risks inherent to playing the game, the players are deemed to know these risks and their consent is implied when they chose to participate. But there can be circumstances that create liability that are not eliminated by the implied consent. The badly installed sprinkler is a great example. But there can be other issues, such as inadequate supervision (ie not taking a player out of a game who repeatedly uses unnecessary roughness), defective safety equipment, etc. The liability may be on a party other than the school. Sometimes liability is on the manufacturer of a product that contributed to the injury. In football there have been multi million dollar suits against the manufacturer's of helmets that failed to protect the players as advertised.
So you have to analyze what caused the injure. Then try to figure out if the cause was a breach of a legal duty owed to your daughter by some party.
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