SPORT AND THE LAW

1. SPORT AND THE LAW What influences does the law have on sport?

2. OVERVIEW • Sport is an integral part of society and increasingly attracts regulation • Changing values and the commercialisation of sport have increased legal implications for stakeholders • The law creates rights and obligations for participants, coaches, officials and other stakeholders • Dispute resolution is normally the responsibility of the relevant sporting organisation • The court system (both civil and criminal jurisdictions) can also play an important role in resolving disputes in sport • Individuals can seek compensation for injuries suffered through negligent or deliberate conduct on the sporting field • The criminal law can intervene and prosecute cases of on-field violence

3. Key terms / vocabulary • Balance of probabilities • Banned substances • Consent • Contributory negligence • Damages • Defences • Doping • Duty of care • Express consent • Monopoly • Morality clause

4. Key terms / vocabulary • Implied consent • Negligence • Performance-enhancing substance • Proximity • Reasonably foreseeable • Recreational drugs • Restraint of trade • Standard of care • Torts • Volenti non fit injuria • Voluntary assumption of risk • World anti-doping agency

5. Key terms / vocabulary • Discrimination • Racism • Duty of care.docx • Negligence.docx • Tort.docx

6. Negligence Case Study 15 year old Raylene Booker was a promising young soccer player in a Saturday morning district soccer competition. In last Saturday’s semi-finals, when trying to tackle an opponent, Raylene broke her leg in 3 places. The doctors have said she will never play again. Raylene’s parents, already upset with the injury, were unhappy with the coach’s explanation of the incident and decided to find out exactly what happened.

7. They discovered that before the game Raylene had told the coach that she did not feel well and did not want to play. The coach reminded Raylene of the game’s importance and urged her to play anyway and to ‘just do her best’. When Raylene’s team was warming up, several players noted deep ruts in the field. Concerned about the danger of turning an ankle, the players informed the coach. The coach told them to try to avoid the holes and he failed to raise the problem with the game referee.

8. Midway through the first half, the accident occurred. Attempting a tackle, Raylene’s foot was caught in a rut and a much larger opponent fell onto her fixed leg. Everyone heard a terrible crack. The coach decided not to wait for an ambulance but rushed Raylene in his own car to the hospital about 5 km away from the ground. Raylene was in terrible pain when the players carried her over to the coach’s car. The ruts were left in the field following ‘improvement work’ that was undertaken during the week by the local council, after a request from the club. The soccer club leases the ground from the council.

9. QUESTIONS • Did the coach owe Raylene a duty of care? Yes. Supervisors owe a duty of care to all the participants

10. Did the coach breach that duty? • Several facts need to be considered here, for example, • the coach ignored Raylene’s request not to play; • he knew the field was not suitable for play; • he did not follow recommended procedure for treating the leg. • The coach allowed Raylene to face unacceptable risks.

11. Who else may be negligent? • The courts have shown that owners and occupiers of facilities (in this case, the council and the club) have a responsibility to ensure that the facilities they provide are suitable for the purpose for which they will be used.

12. Your sport • What is the difference between ‘rules’ and ‘laws’ Explain • What influences does the law have in your sport? • Comment on the statement “what happens on the field stays on the field”

13. TERMINOLOGY • Assault – threatening to commit or committing physical harm (criminal law); threatening to commit physical harm (civil law) • Balance of probabilities – the standard of proof in a civil trial. That is, the plaintiff or applicant must prove that the matter being alleged is more likely that not to have happened.

14. Battery – the use of physical force against another person which results in injury • Civil law – an area of law covering the infringement of a person’s rights. The aim of the is to compensate • Criminal law – the area of law which deals with aspects of criminal conduct • Damages – a payment in money awarded to a plaintiff who succeeds in proving that the defendant caused him or her to suffer an injury, loss or infringement of rights.

15. Defamation – unlawfully damaging a person’s reputation • Defences – pleadings recognised by law that allow a defendant to justify his or her conduct. Defences may be complete or partial, which mean they may allow the person charged to be acquitted if accepted by the court, or they may result in a lesser charge. • Duty of care – responsibility to ensure the safety of those who may be affected by acts or omissions.

16. Implied consent – in relation to sport, a player is said to consent to those things that are inherent in a particular sport, so behaviour normal to that sport is covered by implied consent. • Legislation – law created by Parliament; also known as statute law. • Negligence – situation where a person breaches a duty to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable risk, resulting in a person being injured or suffering a risk

17. Restraint of trade – when a person signs a contract limiting their right to pursue a career or trade, the law views it with suspicion. If the contract is unreasonable, not in the best interests of the player, or not in the public interest, then the law may not enforce it or will cut out he offending portion from the contract

18. Standard of proof – degree to which the party bringing a case must prove their argument. In civil cases, the standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities; in criminal cases, it is beyond reasonable doubt • Sue – to initiate civil proceedings against another individual or party for causing you damage or injury

19. Volenti non fit injuria – ‘no harm can be done to one who consents’, or voluntary assumption of risk. It is reasonable for the law to assume that someone who participates in a recreational or leisure activity is expected to understand the hazards and the potential injury risks involved and consent to the risks.

20. What’s your verdict • If you were the judge in the following cases, what would be your decision and what would be the reasons for your decision?

21. Case Study 1 While playing football. A deliberately strikes B on the side of the head with an elbow, causing serious injury: namely, a blood clot to the brain and a degree of permanent disability. A argues that as foul play sometimes occurs in football, B impliedly consented to it. Can B sue A? If so, for what?

22. Case Study 2 W allegedly spear-tackled L; that is he picked up L and threw him, head first into the ground. As a result, L is a quadriplegic. W was sent off the ground, and one week later the tribunal cleared him of the spear-tackle incident. Such tackles are illegal under the rules of the game of Rugby League. W said he chased after L and tackled him, L said he had been spear tackled and W’s lawyers said there was reasonable doubt.

23. Consider the following incidents. Decide what you think the outcome for each incident should be and give reasons for your decisions (a) Smith is instructed by the coach to put an opponent out of the football game. He does so with a hit to the back of the neck and puts the opponent player in hospital (b) Lily Thomson bowls five consecutive head high bumpers against Ann Jones, striking her on the temple with the last ball. Jones dies and Thomson is arrested and charged with manslaughter (c) A player, Lee, in trying to gather a rugby ball, delivers a hip and shoulder bump fairly to an opponent. The opponent sustains internal injuries as a result of the tackle.

24. Consider your verdict • Case Study A rodeo spectator, P, was injured when struck by a bullock, which had escaped from the arena by clearing a fence that was about 1.5m high. P argued that G, the organiser, had been negligent in failing to take precautions to make the premises safe, given the nature of the entertainment, and in not taking sufficient care to ensure that their display was held without undue risk to spectators. G argued that the risk of escaping bullocks was so remote as to be negligible. G argued it had happened only twice before in these contests. P argued that because beasts had escaped on some occasions, this established the possibility that such an accident was not so unlikely as to relieve G of the obligation to provide a fence of adequate height to protect spectators against an escaping animal. If you were the judge, what would be your decision? State the reasons for your decision.

25. Can they sue? • Person A was walking outside a golf club when he was struck on the head by a golf ball hit from the club’s fairway. A was knocked out and, after regaining consciousness, he suffered from double vision and migraines. • Person B was swimming in the Lorne Pub-to-Pier race when she was struck on the foot by the propeller of a small boat containing race officials. Her foot was badly cut and required 100 stitches. She could not work for one month.

26. Can they sue? 3. Person C was sitting near the on-field boundary of the MCG during the NSW vs Vic one-day cricket match. C was abusing the nearby NSW fielder who, in anger, turned and threw dirt into C’s eyes. C required St John Ambulance medical attention, and felt a fool as the incident was replayed on the big screen at the ground.

27. Can they sue? 4. Person D was a footballer who took a high-flying mark above the pack a the Collingwood vs Carlton game at the MCG. On landing, he struck the top of an exposed in-ground sprinkler and broke his ankle. He was unable to play for the next matches and lost his match payments

28. Can they sue? 5. Person E, a professional hockey player with the Kangaroos, came back to first-class level after damaging her knee. As the situation in the game was urgent, the coach instructed her to go straight onto the field without a warm-up. Within 5 mins, she had torn a ligament and took no further part in the game. She had to go into hospital for surgery and lost six months wages and her sponsorship deal with Hockey Sports Stores.

29. Can they sue? 6. Person F, during a sports broadcast of the Australian Open on SPORTSMAD radio, said that G, a famous tennis player, was ‘past it, unmotivated and too slow to make his shots’.

30. Consider • In the Australian State ‘limited over’ cricket competition, members of the crowd are encouraged to catch any sixes hit over the fence, and the receive a $100 reward for doing so. • What happens if the ball hits a spectator or someone is injured in the melee that occurs when several people try to collect the ball?

31. Consider • In August 1998, former AFL player Phil Krakouer received $90,000 in damages for pain and suffering and economic loss for a knee injury he received when his foot stuck in a muddy part of the MCG during a match. • He sued the MCG as occupier, the AFL as organiser, and North Melbourne as his employer.

32. Protecting Passers By • Organisers have a liability to people passing by outside a sporting ground or course. The law sees them as strangers, neither player nor spectator, but people who happen to be in the vicinity and are injured.

33. Occupiers of a cricket ground were found not negligent when a six hit out of the ground struck a passer-by. Such an event had never happened before and was therefore not foreseeable. Also, taking reasonable precautions could not have prevented it. This was the case of Bolton v Stone. • In 1947, Miss Stone was standing outside her house in Cheetham Hill, when she was struck by a ball hit out of the ground of the nearby cricket club. The ball had travelled nearly 100m from the pitch, and 5m above ground level, over a high fence, and was said to be quite exceptional.

34. Negligence was not proven and Miss Stone lost. • On appeal to the Court of Appeal, however, the decision was reversed. The court decided that the cricket club, knowing that balls had been hit over the fence, owed a duty of care to prevent injury to users of the highway, that they had failed to exercise this care, and were liable for damages.

35. Finally though, the Court of Appeal decision was reversed in the House of Lords. Lord Radcliffe said there ‘was nothing unfair in the defendants being required to compensate the plaintiff’. • However, he continued, ‘the law of negligence is not concerned with what is fair, but with what is culpable’. It was held that the risk of injury to someone on the highway was so small that it was not negligent for the club to disregard it and to fail to take any precautions against it such as moving the pitch or raising the fence.

36. HOMEWORK • Outline the ways in which players participating in sport could: • Be subject to police prosecution • Be subject to court action from another player • Define assault, battery and duty of care, as if you are assisting a sporting club committee • To what extent can a sports player be prosecuted for sports-related assaults in Victoria

37. FINAL QUESTIONS • Would you play with or against a player with HIV? • Why should a local sporting club be incorporated?