Liability of Coaches for Athletes' Injuries

In California, instructors, coaches and trainers are not liable to their participants for negligent instruction or coaching where the resulting injuries involve risks that are inherent to the sport.

Beginning with Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296, our courts have held that under the primary assumption of risk doctrine, participants in sports are not liable for their negligence unless their conduct increases the risks inherent in the sport. Knight changed the way courts approached the application of the assumption-of-risk defense in sports-related injury cases, shifting the focus from an analysis of the plaintiff’s conduct (i.e. whether it was reasonable or unreasonable to confront a known risk) to a determination of whether defendant owed a duty. In accordance with Knight, this issue is now addressed by examining the nature of the sport and the relationship of the participants to that sport.

Over the last fourteen years the courts have expanded the primary assumption of risk doctrine to include and protect instructors and coaches. The rationale has been that to impose liability for inadequate coaching and/or instruction would have a chilling impact on the various sports.

One of the first cases to tackle the issue of instructor liability was Bushnell v. Japanese-American Religious & Cultural Center (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 525, where a judo student was attempting to improve his skills by practicing a certain maneuver with a volunteer instructor. During one such practice maneuver, the student's leg was accidentally broken. The court noted that instruction in an activity such as judo necessarily requires pushing a student to move more quickly or to take some other action that the student previously may not have attempted, and these are inherent risks of the sport. "Absent evidence of recklessness, or other risk-increasing conduct, liability should not be imposed simply because an instructor asked the student to take action beyond what, with hindsight, is found to have been within the student's abilities. To hold otherwise would discourage instructors from requiring students to stretch, and thus to learn, and would have a generally deleterious effect on the sport as a whole."

Some of the other cases that have followed the rationale set forth in Bushnell involve skiing, swimming and cheer leading. In Allan v. Snow Summit, Inc. (1996) 51 Cal.App.4th 1358 a ski instructor was granted summary judgment where he encouraged a novice skier to try an advanced run. The skier alleged negligent instruction and assessment of his abilities resulting in his falling and sustaining a severe spinal injury. In Kane v. National Ski Patrol System, Inc. (2001) 88 Cal. App.4th 204, the court similarly held that there was no liability for a ski instructor whose alleged negligent assessment of the ability of his trainees resulted in their falling into a crevice causing injury to one trainee and death to another. In Lupash v. City of Seal Beach (1999) 75 Cal.App. 4th 1428 the city claimed and was granted a summary judgment on the basis of primary assumption of risk where a 13 year old swimmer had been taught by his coach how to make a competition dive into shallow water. Unfortunately, the swimmer made an inappropriate deep dive into shallow water and was rendered a quadriplegic. In Aaris v. Las Virgenes Unified School District (1998) 64 Cal.App. 4th 1112 a high school student suffered a serious injury when practicing a dangerous cheerleading routine in which she was thrown into the air to be caught by other high school cheerleaders. She alleged that her coaches provided inadequate safety instruction. Even though there were questions whether these cheerleaders had been properly instructed, had been required to employ commonly used safety devices, and had first mastered this dangerous gymnastic maneuver while using such safety devices, the court declined to allow a jury to decide whether "more supervision would have reduced the risk of harm." Summary judgment was ordered and the case was dismissed against the school and its coaches.

However, it should be noted that there are cases where instructors and/or coaches have been found liable to plaintiffs. In those cases the instructor was found to have increased the risks that are inherent to their particular sport. An example is Tan v. Goddard (1993) 13 Cal. App.4th 1528 where the plaintiff was a student at a jockey school. He was told to ride a particular horse that the instructor knew to be injured. The instructor pronounced the horse fit to ride and directed the plaintiff to jog the horse on a particularly rocky track. The horse's front legs gave way and the horse went down causing plaintiff’s injuries. The court held that the riding instructor owed plaintiff a duty of ordinary care to see to it that the horse he assigned was safe to ride under the conditions he prescribed for that activity. Failing to provide a fit animal and a safe track increased the risk to the plaintiff beyond that inherent in the activity and liability might attach for requiring the plaintiff to take on the increased risk.

In sum, a defendant does not owe a duty of care to the plaintiff simply because one can be labeled an instructor and the other a student. The question, as always, is whether, given the activity in question and the relationship of the defendant to the activity and to the plaintiff, the imposition of liability would have a chilling effect on the conduct required by the nature of the activity. Application of usual principles of duty and assumption of risk show that in ordinary cases coaches and instructors cannot be held liable for directing or advising actions that inadvertently produce injury.