Your child is playing organized football, and practices start this summer. One day, you get a call from the coach saying that they’ve been taken to the hospital with a head injury. They were involved in a collision with another player, they lost consciousness, and the school wanted to send them to the hospital to make sure that it wasn’t more serious.
This can all get very expensive very quickly, and you are, of course, worried about your child. But could you sue the school or the football team over an injury?
There may be ways to do so
As a general rule of thumb, most injuries would not be able to result in a lawsuit. Football is a dangerous game, and players – and their parents – take on some risks when they decide to play. Young players suffer from concussions, broken bones, torn ligaments and many other injuries every year. Some of these just happen in the course of the game or practice and there was nothing that could have been done to avoid it.
However, there are some situations in which a lawsuit may be possible. For instance, maybe the school was negligent and issued your child a football helmet that was outdated and that had been deemed unsafe. The school didn’t want to pay to update their helmets, and that’s what put your child at risk of a serious brain injury. Yes, football is dangerous, but your child saw an increased level of risk simply because of the equipment they were given.
This is just one example, but it shows why it may be wise to talk to an experienced legal team after the injury. You always want to look into all the options that you have.
