Sports Injury Law

Sports are a pastime and are meant to be fun. Minor injuries can occur and are even inevitable in certain sports but serious injury caused by another person is a different story and may be grounds for a lawsuit.

If you have been injured by the actions of another player or a coach or a referee, you should first seek immediate medical attention. Then, depending on your situation, filing a lawsuit may be the appropriate next step for you. It is extremely important that the attorney you choose to handle your case is one who has handled sports injury cases before and is, therefore, familiar with this tricky area of the law.

Was it a contact or non-contact sport?

The general view of the courts is that sports are physical and sometimes dangerous and you are responsible for taking that risk. However, that doesn't mean another player or coach or referee cannot be held liable if you are seriously injured.

The standard in personal injury cases is negligence - if someone's negligence causes injury, they are liable. This is still the rule in non-contact sports. An example of a non-contact sport is tennis. If you were injured during a tennis match, then you would sue under a negligence theory - i.e. the player or coach was negligent in some way that caused your injury.

However, with contact sports, there is the contact sports exception (also known as the contact sports doctrine), which states that a person is only liable if their actions were intentional or willful and wanton. Contact sports include soccer, baseball and basketball. If physical contact is an expected part of the sport, then it qualifies as a contact sport. If you were injured while playing a contact sport and you believe that the injury was caused by another player's intentional actions, you would sue under the contact sports exception.

Proving it was intentional or willful or wanton

Proving that the defendant acted intentionally or recklessly will depend on the facts and other factors such as whether the action is what is acceptable or routine in that particular sport. For example, brushing into a player as they slide into home base is typical but tripping the player is not. The facts of your case and the range of normal activity in the particular sport you were playing will be used to prove intent.

Was it a full contact sport?

Full contact sports are another exception all their own. For these sports, the standard is intentional or completely beyond normal activity for that particular sport. Full contact sports include football, hockey and boxing, where physical contact is actually an element of the game. So, if you were seriously injured during a football game, you would have to prove that the defendant's actions were intentional or that the defendant's actions went completely beyond what is acceptable in that particular sport.

Was it caused by a non-participant?

It is believed that holding non-participants like a coach or a referee accountable for negligence would negatively affect the sport as a whole. Still, the standard is that these non-participants owe a duty to not harm others. Coaches are expected to provide instruction on safety and referees are expected to stop a game when they see a violation. If you believe a coach failed to provide safe instructions or if you believe a referee allowed a violation to continue that led to your injury, you may have grounds for a lawsuit. Again, it will depend on the facts of the case and the expectations of the particular sport.

Was your child hurt playing a sport?

If your child was injured while playing a sport at school or at another facility, the school, team, coach or facility may liable depending on the circumstances. If the playing field or area was not properly maintained, it could be a negligence issue. If, as noted above, the players were not properly supervised or the referees were not calling violations or another player intentionally harmed your child, you could have a case based on the above noted law. Either way, you should speak to an attorney as soon after your child receives medical attention.

Finding the right sports injury attorney
As with all areas of law, there are time limits to filing your case. You should contact an attorney as soon as possible to review your options.

Online Sports Gambling Laws

Prior to delving into the world of sports betting online, many people stop to wonder if they are breaking any state or local laws. In most states, and even the federal government, have legislation about whether its legal or not to gamble online.

Who Regulates Sports Betting?

The regulations of gambling in the US were entirely discretionary per state until recently. The start of online gambling created confusion about jurisdiction. Who runs the laws of cyberspace? Most current gambling laws were meant to apply to general gambling laws, long before the internet existed. Thus the application of those laws to online gambling are open to broad interpretation.

US Regulation of Sports Betting

Most people ask "Is it legal to run a ports betting operation offshore and take action from clients in the US?" The US will most likely argue it is not legal. However, no bills have yet been passed to prevent any such activities from happening. In recent years, attempts to pass bills of this sort have failed.

The government has placed responsibility of gambling legislation at the hands of individual states. Some states have considered legalizing online gambling but have failed. Some states also have added legislation that prohibits the advertising of online casino (Illinois is one such state). Only three states - Nevada, Louisiana and California prohibit citizens from betting beyond state borders. Such laws are loosely enforced. In fact, most states consider gambling violations misdemeanors with the majority focusing on operators as opposed to the gamblers themselves. To avoid breaking US laws, most internet sportsbooks are located offshore in foreign countries along with their servers!

To be clear, the US government has been trying to pass legislation to deal with the regulation of online gambling. But, because there are so many grey areas regarding who has authority over cyberspace activities, these attempts have been unsuccessful in passing. It's becoming clear that the US will not be able to effectively legislate online gambling as of now but that's not to say what the future may hold...

So, Can I Bet Sports Legally?

The simple answer is there is an explicit law against online betting in only three states - Nevada, California, and Louisiana. Even so, NO American citizen has r been arrested for betting on the internet as of yet. Again, that's not to say what the future may bring...

The Law of Attraction For Skeptics

Do you know anyone who is skeptical about all this "Law of Attraction stuff"? If you talk about it publicly, I am sure you do. Maybe it is even you.

What is it you hear?

o Oh, if the Law of Attraction worked I wouldn't have all this bad stuff...this certainly isn't anything I want!
o I have been focused on getting rich all my life...and look where I am now...nope, this doesn't work!
o I am dying from this disease...I would never attract that!
o And on and on and on...

Sound familiar? Sound maybe too familiar? Maybe these are words out of your own mouth.

Let's take a look at the Law of Attraction in action. Are you a sports fan? Have you ever seen a quarterback who just can't complete a pass, and the more he tries, the worse it gets? Have you ever watched a golfer needing to hit across a water hazard reach into his bag a pull out a scarred "water ball" - and hit directly into the water? Still with golf, have you ever seen a golf pro get "into a zone" and sink every putt he tries? What the about the pitcher who can't hit the strike zone, or the one who can't miss?

Not into sports, well just listen to these Law of Attraction based phrases:

o Bad things come in threes
o Birds of a feather flock together
o The worse it gets the worse it gets
o If it weren't for bad luck, she wouldn't have any luck at all
o Everything he touches turns to gold

These phrases and thousands more like them did not just come into our language by chance. The sports examples above cannot all be coincidence. These attraction based figures of speech and observations are evidence of the existence of the Law of Attraction.

Imagine how peculiar the Law of Gravity must have seemed when it was first observed. Sure, apples fell from trees, but birds flew and boats floated. When you dropped something, you could not predict with perfect accuracy where it would land. When you shot an arrow, you knew that putting some arch in it actually increased the distance that it went. What did all of this mean about gravity? It simply meant that there were multiple forces at work, and while gravity always worked, the other forces influenced our observation of it.

So it is with the Law of Attraction. Sometimes we really are not focused on what we say we are. We may say we want money, but we are really focused on the lack of money (and so it is the lack of money that we get.) Our attitudes, beliefs, concerns all effect how we observe the Law of Attraction. That said, with sufficient analysis, there is simply no evidence that the Law of Attraction does not work. Every single thing we have, we attract.