Miss Hobbins (the claimant) and her then partner (Geraint Grace) had aimed to climb Ben Nevis, but wanted another activity to do the day before their climb. After reading an advertising leaflet for Vertical Descents Ltd (the defendants), they settled on Canyoning – “a method of descending canyons, streams, ravines and other water-courses by means of sliding, jumping and scrambling.” [2]. Indeed, Vertical Descents Ltd were an experienced outdoor activity company and had been the first company in Scotland to offer the activity.

After attending a safety briefing and signing a disclaimer form, the participants were given protective clothing (wetsuit, buoyancy aid and helmet) and driven to the easiest of the canyoning routes used by Vertical (Allt Gleann A’chaolis, near Kinlochleven).

The key problem for Miss Hobbin can be traced back to her failure to maintain her footing and balance during the activity. Initially, the Court heard how she was concerned prior to embarking whether her choice of footwear would be suitable (she wanted to wear baseball shoes in order to keep her hiking boots dry prior to the proposed climb the following day). At Vertical’s headquarters though, an instructor confirmed that this would be acceptable as the soft baseball shoe sole would enable them to establish “maximum contact with the surfaces” [7]. Sadly during the activity, this grip did not seem to help her. She became bogged down in marshy ground on the ascent [12], and slipped and fell in the water during the descent [14].

Ultimately the injury occurred when Miss Hobbin declined to make a jump of about 15ft into the water and was making her way down to a lower level to meet up with the rest of the group. As she was descending, she subsequently lost her footing on the rocks and fell, striking the back of her head. After a short period of time, the claimant was then assisted down the hill by her partner and an instructor and taken to hospital for observation.

In the Scottish Outer House, Court of Session, both parties argued that the claim depended on identifying the exact rock that the claimant was standing on, the Court however took a much broader view and focused on two main points:

1)      Whether the claimant should have been allowed to do the activity given that the descent was inherently risky and the claimant had been struggling with the ascent [26]. The Court however saw no reason why the claimant was unable or unwilling to continue the descent and this claim was struck out.

2)      The general credibility and reliability of the evidence as to how the accident occurred [34]. While Miss Hobbins credibility was not in question, the Court felt that her tiredness and inexperience with the topography of the canyon was not as reliable as that of the instructor (Graham Reid), who was well qualified and experienced, had led approx 80-100 canyoning trips [12] and was very familiar with the terrain and layout. As such the claim was dismissed and no liability found.

RISK

What is particularly interesting about this case is the discussion on perception of risk. Encouragingly, the Court relied on the dicta from Scout Association v. Barnes [2010] EWCA 1476 [34] acknowledging that it was not the function of the law to deter normal leisure activities. The Court also noted a number of points emphasising Miss Hobbins’ informed consent about the nature of the activity, in particular that she had:

• Read Vertical Descent’s description of the activity (website / advertising literature)
• Read and signed a disclaimer form for the activity which specifically highlighted the risks and nature of the canyoning [8]
• Been given information by course instructors during a safety briefing and had been given the opportunity to ask questions
• Been required to wear safety clothing (including a helmet)
• Observed the site herself when she had reached the top of the ascent
• Self-evaluated her own competence to perform the activity

Although the Court seemed approving of the claimant’s expert witness (Mr Barton) when he said that “it was the duty of an adventure company to keep risks within a tolerable level”, it did note that it was difficult to determine what constitutes the right measure of tolerance [31]. And while it is obiter in this case, therein lies the key to outdoor and adventure liability – what level of risk is acceptable? Should we have different tolerances for guides and paid clients, to hardy adventurers wishing to challenge their own limits?

As Jon’s last post foreshadowed, what is however difficult to reconcile is the perception that outdoor adventure activity is comparatively harmless:

• At [4], the Court heard how Vertical’s website stated that “canyoning is a safe, fun and enjoyable activity for people of all ages and levels of fitness”
• Throughout her evidence, the claimant repeated that she thought that the activity would be safe [31]
• Mr Barton stated in cross examination that “persons on canyoning ‘taster days’ don’t want to be doing anything more risky than being on the High Street” [32] (although I suppose this depends on which High Street at what time of night!)

As Erin Langworthy’s recent Bungee Jump into the Zambezi River showed, the trouble with probabilities are that sometimes those rare accidents do happen. Is the solution therefore to ensure that consent to outdoor or adventurous activities becomes more akin to medical negligence where every material risk and percentage needs to be disclosed, or is it more akin to rugby – where consent is implied from mere participation in the activity?

The problem is that Leap of the integral of the random variable with respect to its probability measure just doesnt have the same catchy ring to it as ‘Leap of Faith’!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxkY0GGNVMM

The second avalanche fatality involved a client with a commercially guided heli-ski operation. According to a piece in The Globe and Mail (click here to read the article), what I found interesting was Canadian Mountain Holidays Inc. lawyer Marty von Neudegg’s efforts to brand heli-skiing in the aftermath of an avalanche fatality as a “wilderness experience sport’ rather than “extreme sport” which almost makes it sound like he’s selling safe heli-skiing. He comes closer to the edge in acknowledging that risks exist but the inconvenient truth is that heli-skiing is inherently dangerous and that even the best guides cannot eliminate all risks. Says von Neudegg, ‘There are risks, for sure, but our guides … want to come home at the end of the day and they are not pushing the edge. We try to stay well inside the boundary, but obviously in this case, something went wrong.’

It is incredibly sad that Greg Sheardown died and my heartfelt sympathies go to his family. Clearly something went wrong though. But that doesn’t necessarily mean someone did something wrong. CMH has had 11 avalanche fatalities in 9 million group ski runs; those are pretty good odds. This may just be an unfortunate and tragic instance of the laws of probability catching up in the heli-skiing industry.

The NFL’s concussion crisis was put into the spotlight starting in 2007 by Alan Schwarz of the New York Times. Schwarz has since written dozens of articles for the Times about brain injuries in football. As Ben McGrath of The New Yorker (click here for the piece) wrote last year, ‘Credit for the public’s increased awareness of these issues must go to the Times, and to its reporter Alan Schwarz, whom Dr. Joseph Maroon, the [NFL Pittsburgh] Steelers’ neurosurgeon and a long time medical adviser to the league, calls “the Socratic gadfly in this whole mix.”’ Schwarz’s reporting sparked and catalyzed change in the NFL’s approach to brain injuries. The league is now named in about a dozen concussion-related lawsuits.

The NHL has been painfully slow to implement real changes that would reduce the occurrence of brain injuries. Just like the hockey enforcer who is tapped on the shoulder by his coach or just knows he must answer the bell, the NHL has got to see that the writing is on the wall (on in this case, splashed on the pages of The New York Times), that the time is nigh for change and know that the bell tolls for thee.

Photograph licensed by Agencia Brasil under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brazil license.

In recent days it has been difficult to avoid the furore surrounding Sepp Blatter (President of FIFA)’s recent comments concerning what he sees as the new approach to treat racism in sport:

“I would deny it. There is no racism.  There is maybe one of the players towards another – he has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one. But the one who is affected by that, he should say that this is a game. We are in a game, and at the end of the game, we shake hands, and this can happen, because we have worked so hard against racism and discrimination.”  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/17/sepp-blatter-fifa-racism-rio-ferdinand?newsfeed=true)

In the current UK climate where two high-profile premiership footballers are currently being investigated by The Football Association over, as yet unproven, allegations made against them of making racist comments (which both players vehemently deny), Blatter’s recent interview is at best ill-informed, at worst it represents an attempt to trivialise and condone racist language.

Many players (current and former), pundits, administrators and politicians have rightly come out and strongly condemned Blatter’s comments, however until the commercial sponsors also seek to distance themselves from FIFA, I fear that the status quo will continue and this will not be the last controversial statement emanating from FIFA house. After all, President Blatter offended female players in 2004 with his suggestion to enhance the women’s game through players wearing:

‘tighter shorts and low cut shirts… to create a more female aesthetic.‘

and his 2008 assertion that:

‘there are gay footballers, but they don’t declare it because it will not be accepted in these macho organisations. Look at women’s football – homosexuality is more popular there‘

Indeed, he clearly warmed to this theme of homophobia, returning to it in 2010 with advice to gay rights campaigners to ‘refrain from any sexual activities’ to avoid breaking any laws and offending the World Cup hosts in Qatar!

What are the odds then on Blatter offending disabled footballers next in his attempts to discriminate against everyone equally?

Much ink, column space and tweets have been spilled dissecting his most recent comments, but everybody seems to be missing something, is Sepp Blatter not in fact the new poster boy for “sports law”?

So what do I mean by this? It has long been a perennial (and somewhat dry) academic debate as to whether sports law exists. Is sport special, where what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch, immune from the laws of the land (sports law)? Or should offences be punished wherever and whenever they occur irrespective of the fact they might occur on a sportsfield (sport and the law)? Or is there some sort of middle ground where we take into account the context of the game being played (applied sports law).

When the latest player gets carted off injured, there is inevitably a reluctance for the law to become involved for fears that it might lead to a sterilization of the sport and the vigour with which it is played. However is this not what Sepp is also clumsily advocating (only in the context of racism rather than personal injury), as such, is this not simply a manifestation of an extreme view of what could happen if we allow sport to completely self-regulate itself?

While his comments on racism are rightly condemned, we can see similar language already exists in relation to personal injury, for example, compare Blatter’s later comments on the FIFA website:

“My comments have been misunderstood. What I wanted to express is that, as football players, during a match, you have ‘battles’ with your opponents, and sometimes things are done which are wrong. But, normally, at the end of the match, you apologise to your opponent if you had a confrontation during the match, you shake hands, and when the game is over, it is over.” 

With the well-known Canadian criminal law ice-hockey case of Agar v Canning (1965) 54 WWR 302, 304:

“The conduct of a player in the heat of the game is instinctive and unpremeditated and should not be judged by standards suited to polite social intercourse.”

Isn’t Blatter merely taking this Agar personal injury concept to the next level and attempting to apply it to every incident on the sports pitch (or on this occasion as an ill-thought out and unacceptable attempt to try to excuse or condone racist behaviour).

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live, former player turned pundit, Garth Crooks was quoted as saying that:

“Football has to be very careful. It’s the one industry that somehow sees itself as above the law. It is not. Players, however glorified, are employees and have to abide by the law. Sepp is a man out of time and out of touch.”

However maybe it is actually the rest of us that have to be very careful. With every reaction against verdicts like:

• the Bosman ruling, or Karen Murphy’s recent European Court victory in her challenge against the Premier League and Sky Sports,
• the 2010 case of Sagen v. VANOC where Canadian courts upheld womens ski-jumpers argument that their ban from the Winter Olympics was discriminatory but ultimately held that there was nothing that could be done in the face of a lack of constitutional jurisdiction over the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
• government ‘meddling’ in the governance arrangements of national governing bodies
• and perhaps more importantly the impending FC Sion legal dispute

maybe we are actually inching ever closer to Blatter’s extreme view where it is unaccountable sporting authorities that control what happens on the pitch unregulated and effectively immune from any national or international legislation?

The reaction against Blatter’s comments from all walks of life gives me some hope that maybe we are not as far down this route as we might have initially appeared to be, the question now for the public and administrators to decide is how ‘special is sport’ and to what degree do we expect it to meet minimum standards of governance, transparency and equality? Or put simply how far do we trust sport to regulate itself?

Quia Custodet Ipsos Custodes?

Over the weekend, I finally managed to collate my various thoughts and notes into some semblance of order.

Firstly, our thanks must go to De Montfort University (DMU) and the British Association for Sport and the Law (BASL) for hosting what was once again a very enjoyable afternoon of speakers exploring a variety of key sports law topics. The half-day conference heard from six speakers, the first plenary session focusing primarily on football and Europe, the second plenary session focusing more on the investigatory and disciplinary processes behind the scenes:

Nick Craig (Director of Legal Affairs, the Football League) gave a presentation on ‘Financial Fair Play and the Football League’.  While the UEFA Club Licensing Regulations have been in place from the 2004/05 season (the current Licensing Manual is now in its 2^nd edition), UEFA have also launched Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFPR) to be applied from the summer of 2011 with the view that all clubs in European competition break-even by 2018. The topic is hot news at the moment in both the mainstream press and more specialist legal coverage.

There were number of particularly interesting points about the contrast between the FFPR being applied in the Premier League as a condition of entry into European competitions, and the Football League (FL) model where the licensing regulations are intended more as a regulatory mechanism to control the clubs and force them to become more sustainable. Legally this agreement with the FL clubs represents a “soft” law approach where the clubs “agree  to actively work to introduce measures”, “increase transparency” and encourage clubs to operate”….  Time will tell how effective the league will be with this increased regulatory authority.

The big stick comes in Article 12(2) of the FFPR which states that:

2 The membership and the contractual relationship (if any) must have lasted – at the start of the licence season – for at least three consecutive years. Any alteration to the club’s legal form or company structure (including, for example, changing its headquarters, name or club colours, or transferring stakeholdings between different clubs) during this period in order to facilitate its qualification on sporting merit and/or its receipt of a licence to the detriment of the integrity of a competition is deemed as an interruption of membership or contractual relationship (if any) within the meaning of this provision.

This clause effectively holds that any club going insolvent restarts this three year process from scratch when it transfers its assets to a new owner, preventing clubs from ditching their debts and picking up where they left off free of all those troublesome creditors.

The devil as always is in the detail though, and while the cornerstone of the FFPR programme is in achieving break-even status, there are loopholes or ‘Acceptable Deviations’. In particular, the ability to lose €5m over the three years covered by the FFPR period (rising to a €45m loss if this is covered by equity contributions) neatly sidesteps the break-even provision, while Annex I A(d) of the FFPR lists an exception for:

d) Non-applicability of the three-year rule defined in Article 12(2) in case of change of legal form or company structure of the licence applicant on a caseby-case basis;   

or put another way, all clubs are equal, but some clubs are more equal than others, particularly if they might be a marquee name with large attendances and gate receipts!

 See also: http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/ for more information on the FFPR rules

Chris Anderson (Associate, Brabners Chaffe Street Solicitors) gave a presentation on ‘Development Compensation for Young Football Players’.  One of the key drivers for this talk was the decision in ECJ – Case C-325/08 Olympique Lyonnais SASP v. Olivier Bernard & Newcastle United FC [41]:

“…In that regard, it must be accepted that, as the Court has already held, the prospect of receiving training fees is likely to encourage football clubs to seek new talent and train young players…”

 This will be a theme, the blog hopes to come back to in the near future, but essentially how much / little should be paid to clubs training (effectively as hot-houses) for new talent.

 Chris drew distinctions between:

• the FIFA system which compensated for both the training costs of a player (although at times there were concerns these payments were ‘damages-based’ rather than a reflection of the actual training costs), and the ‘solidarity mechanism’ (which effectively acted as a wealth redistribution system to share up to 5% of any transfer between clubs training the player between the ages of 12 and 23).
• The current domestic system which was based on agreeing costs (either by the agreement with clubs, or by reference to the Professional Football Compensation Committee (PFCC))
• The proposed NEW domestic ‘Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP)’ provisionally scheduled to start in July 2012. This system was created and driven by the PL to specifically produce greater numbers of talented home-grown players through increased coaching time and a more transparent (and legally defensible) fixed training cost mechanism. The new system is split into three main phases:
  • The Foundation Phase (U9-U11):  every academy charges a flat fee
  • Youth Development Phase (U12-U16): standardised model of fixed payments based on academy status
  • Professional Development Phase (U17-U21): Clubs (or PFCC) agree appropriate fee

 See also alternative perspectives from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2011/02/football_league_fears_over_pla.html; http://www.fiveyearplanfanzine.co.uk/News/football-league-votes-to-back-elite-player-performance-plan.html; http://www.leedsunited.com/news/20111021/united-ceo-on-a-dark-day-for-football_2247585_2489344

Simon Boyes (Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University) gave a presentation on ‘Sport and the European Union after the Lisbon Treaty’. The presentation traced the history of sport in the EU from its initial lack of academic interest, through the various reports, declarations, models and specificities to the present day and the Treaty of Lisbon. In doing so, Simon very much emphasised the evolutionary rather than revolutionary road to Lisbon. What was particularly interesting about the presentation was the thought that the EU was acting not so much as a regulator, but rather as a facilitator / supporter and using sport as a vehicle to engage in wider social missions (e.g. anti-doping, racism, corruption etc). These “softer” words such as “promotion…contribution…taking account of….developing” very much echoed Nick’s earlier talk on incorporating the UEFA licensing model into the Football League. Have all sporting regulators now embraced the softer stick? I thought that was just supposed to be horse-racing?

Any current discussion on Europe would not be complete without mentioning the recent Karen Murphy ruling (see here for a more in-depth analysis), and this was no exception! Interestingly, Simon suggested that fairness and openness were starting to creep into the ECJ rulings as values to be protected and upheld. This might be a trend to watch, particularly given the agenda for good governance and transparency.

Max Duthie (Partner, Bird & Bird Solicitors) gave a presentation on ‘The Sports Disciplinary Process’. The presentation started with, what seemed to be a recurring theme at the conference, the reluctance of the law to become involved in regulating sport (unless there was a clear departure from the rules / natural justice). Instead, Max pointed to the private, contractual nature of the disciplinary process, with governing bodies imposing their own regulatory codes of behaviour on the athletes under their jurisdiction.

Where I think that this presentation became more controversial was in the issue of jurisdiction, in particular who the sports were purporting to regulate. Max gave a number of examples:

• Direct contractual links (Paul Stretford)
• Implied contracts / contracts by conduct (Petr Korda)
• Voluntary submission to jurisdiction (Dean Richards)

However, where I think the issue becomes greyer is in Sports Codes like the recent Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) Competition Regulations, effective from 1 September 2011:

1.3 By organising, entering, playing tennis in and/ or participating in any way in an LTA Official Competition (including as officials, staff, coaches, representatives, agents, medical staff, relatives and associates of a Player, a Player’s entourage and spectators), a person and/or entity agrees to be bound by and to comply with these Regulations.

It is one thing to bind an athlete to a particular code of conduct, but quite another to hold that they should be responsible for the conduct of all spectators, especially when the player is court-side during a match. On a similar theme, the regulations merely state ‘relatives’ – does this mean all relatives? Or do we need to apply an Alcock-esque ‘close-ties of love and affection test’?

There was also a particularly interesting discussion on whether disciplinary sanctions should be fixed or variable and Max talked about the trade-off between consistency (fixed) and discretion / proportionality (variable), before warning of the cautionary tale of Delon Armitage and the implications that plea-bargaining might have on future tribunals.

See also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/nov/08/delon-armitage-london-irish-england?newsfeed=true  

Adam Brickell (Head of Legal Compliance, British Horseracing Authority) gave a presentation on ‘The Investigative Processes of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA)’. The highly technical and diagrammatic nature of the presentation makes it somewhat difficult to summarise in any way that could begin to do justice to it. That said, Adam did make a number of interesting observations about the role of the BHA, and in particular the 5 areas that it is currently addressing:

• Clear rules and regulations for participants
• An effective investigative and intelligence capability
• Robust disciplinary and licensing structures
• Comprehensive, on-going education programme
• Partnership approach with the Police, Betting industry and Gambling Commission

Two areas that may be of particular interest to watch in the future, are the concern that a number of betting firms are based offshore and, while they currently assist the BHA through Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), these MoUs are not legally binding should the companies wish to subsequently withdraw their support. The second issue is linked to this and concerns the lack of regulation surrounding spread betting companies.

As an aside, Adam’s talk also continued Max’s theme from earlier about the regulation (or failure to regulate) members of the public not bound by the organisations rules. In particular, Adam gave the example of 6 individuals who placed suspicious bets on a particular horse, but fell outside the jurisdiction of the BHA when they decided not to cooperate with the investigation.

The final presentation belonged to Jonathan Merritt (Senior Lecturer, DMU) who gave us a sneak preview of his new PhD research into ‘Anti-Doping and Equestrianism’. We wish you every success in this venture…

To begin, Judge Theodore Tyma of Connecticut Superior Court dismissed the lawsuit filed by Madeline Fromageot (click here for the story) which alleged Joan Bennett assaulted her (the extent of the alleged assault was that Fromageot’s headband was knocked from her head during a confrontation) after Bennett came to the defence of her son whose head was being banged against a wall by the plaintiff. Fromageot was apparently exacting retribution for what she perceived as an unfair hit by Bennett’s 10 year old son against her son. In the spirit of an eye for an eye, Fromageot walked over to the players’ bench, grabbed the boy’s helmeted head and began banging it against the Plexiglass wall, yelling ‘don’t hit my son.’ It was after witnessing her son’s head bouncing off the wall that Bennett intervened when the alleged assault took place. Judge Tyma wryly stated that, ‘This case arises from two mothers dispensing with the time-honored notion of playground justice and taking matters between their sons into their own hands.’ The defendant’s lawyer called the decision a ‘vindication of common sense and our system of justice’ and summed it best: ‘The plaintiff’s case didn’t belong in the witness box, it belonged in the penalty box.’

Lastly, The RCMP are investigating an incident in which it is alleged a 15 year old hockey player with the Neepewa Natives of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL) boy was forced to walk naked with water bottles tied to his scrotum as part of a hazing ritual. Five players were victimized during the rookie hazing. The MJHL has fined the team $5000, suspended head coach Bryant Perrier two games, assistant coach Brad Biggers five games, captain Danil Kalashnikov five games, assistant captains Richard Olson, Tyler Gaudry and Shane Harrington were suspended three games each and another 12 players were suspended one game each.

The legal system may once again be tested to determine where the line lies between the culture of a sport which permits behavior within and outwith the rules on the playing surface as well as behind the scenes. In a take on the Las Vegas expression, ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,’ hockey traditionalists believe that what happens on the ice, or by extension in the locker rooms, should stay there. Generally speaking, the courts have historically taken an similarly accommodating view to the extent that it approves not only intentional and inadvertent legal contact such as open ice hits or checks but illegal conduct such as fighting, boarding or blindside hits. Indeed, such infractions are contemplated in the rule books and are presumed to be understood and consented by all those who participate.

The custom of hazing or inducting a rookie player onto the team involves subjecting the player to demeaning or degrading acts – often involving alcohol – and upon completion of said humiliating acts the player will have passed the test and is accepted onto the team. The role of consent in these rituals in less clear.

Recent incidents in Canada (note that Canada is not unique in this regard), for example, include St. Thomas University (Fredericton, New Brunswick) rookie volleyball player Andrew Bartlett, 21, who was found dead in November 2010 after attending a team party where rookie players were allegedly urged to drink voluminous amounts of alcohol and participate in degrading acts, the Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario) women’s soccer team was suspended for two games in September 2009 after holding a rookie initiation that involved what the university called ‘serious alcohol abuse’ and inappropriate and irresponsible behavior, McGill University (Montreal, Quebec) cancelled its football season in October 2005 after a university investigation revealed that the hazing involved ‘nudity, degrading positions and behaviors, gagging, touching in inappropriate manners with a broomstick [the 18 year old complainant alleged he was sexually assaulted with a broomstick by an upperclassman as teammates cheered him on] as well as verbal and physical intimidation of rookies by a large portion of the team’ and, finally, the Windsor Spitfires hockey team was fined $35,000 and general manager / coach Moe Mantha suspended one year as manager and 40 games as coach for a hazing incident which involved a small number of players being told to stand naked in the washroom, with the heat turned up, at the back of the bus by other players following an exhibition game (one player, Akim Aliu, who refused to take part was afterwards hit during a practice by teammate Steve Downie with a blindside crosscheck to the mouth knocking out three teeth but that’s another story).

Such initiation rituals were historically regarded as team building exercises and, if they crossed the line of civility, as an unfortunate but essential byproduct of the hockey culture. Former professional player Ryan Johnston states that ‘Hazing is like fighting — part of the game. Part of the game that people who haven’t played it just wouldn’t understand’ (click here for story).

It is interesting that the legal system up until now has not really looked at such incidents. In any other setting, it would surely constitute assault. It would be a stretch to say that the victims consented by their own free will to these acts or that they were not coerced into participating.

Back to the Neepewa Natives. Only after relentless reporting by the Winnipeg Free Press and the national attention given to the story did the RCMP open up an investigation into the alleged incident. Surely there will come a time when incidents such as those listed above will be appreciated by the legal system that they are not part of the game but are symptomatic of a sport gone sideways in need of help to get it back on track and on its proper path.

The case concerned a 16yr old rugby player injured during a touch rugby game at his local club in Leicester, UK. Perhaps surprisingly for a rugby negligence judgment, the case did not concern injuries from any collapsing scrums, but rather concerned a knee injury from a collision with a semi-buried obstacle.

Read the BBC news report or the full case transcript.

FACTS OF THE CASE

On 2^nd July 2007, midway through the training session at Syston RFC Ltd, the three rugby coaches changed the session from Age Groups practice to a mixed-age “tag” rugby match involving U16 & U17 players on each team.

About 30mins into the match, the claimant received the ball and dived for the touch-line to score. Unfortunately for the claimant, hidden in the grass at the time was part of a plastic cricket boundary marker which gashed him, causing severe and permanent knee injuries. He claims £54,000 for the club’s negligence in failing to inspect the pitch and to discover this stub [3].

The Club admitted a duty of care to the Claimant under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 to “take such care, as was reasonable in the circumstances of the case, to see that Mr Sutton (and their other visitors) would be reasonably safe in using the Club’s premises.” [5]

They also admitted that no general inspection of the pitch had taken place before the match and that in this respect they had failed. The issues between the parties can be distilled into two main questions:

1)    What was the appropriate standard to judge the quality of the inspection

2)    Whether this inspection would have revealed the stub (causation)

INSPECTION STANDARD

The starting point is do clubs have a duty to conduct an inspection of their facilities? The simply answer is yes. Even if the rugby club had hired its pitch out and the obstacle in question had been placed there by an unknown cricketing third party who may have owed an obligation to “remove all traces of their presence… that does not of itself delegate or discharge the rugby club’s duty as occupiers of the Club premises and towards players using the pitch for the different purpose of a later rugby match. [§33]”

So what is the nature of this non-delegable duty? Effectively, Lord Justice Longmore expressly approved the guidelines from the National Governing Body for the sport – the Rugby Football Union (RFU). These guidelines provided a safety check-list to check the ground for foreign objects “such as glass, concrete, large stones and dog waste”.

Nothing controversial so far. The crux of the case comes in the decision how this inspection is to be consulted. This finally arrived in:

Before a game or training session, a pitch should be walked over “at a reasonable walking pace” by a coach, match organiser, someone on their behalf, or by multiple persons inspecting pre-agreed areas [13].

In laying down this standard, Longmore LJ was at pains to note that the standard of the inspection should be the same whether the activity was a training session or match and that all areas of the pitch should be treated by the same standard, particularly given that the danger to be avoided (falling into foreign objects) could happen during any part of the pitch. No doubt in reaching this latter decision, the learned judge was particularly influenced by the recent World Cup match where the English players were never in any risk should any foreign objects have been buried in the French touchline!

This test therefore rejects the earlier first instance decision [11]:

“While not required to investigate below every blade of grass it seems to me a slightly more careful degree of attention needed to be paid [to] the touch-down ends of the pitch where players are to be expected to dive or fall onto the ground. [§34]”

WOULD AN INSPECTION HAVE REVEALED THE STUB?

Sadly for the claimant, this is where his case tripped up. Once Longmore LJ had applied the balance of probabilities test from Fairchild v. Glenhaven Funderal Service [2003] 1 AC 32, the Court of Appeal was unsure that the stub could have been discovered [17]. In particular, the Court noted that the grass was ‘lush’, ‘below the level of the grass’, only one witness actually saw the stub, and it was not immediately visible on a casual inspection. Given these comments, the Court concluded that a reasonable walk-over inspection of the pitch would not have revealed the stub, and therefore the claim fails [17].

WIDER IMPLICATIONS

An interesting footnote to the case is that at times the Court of Appeal was very keen to limit the implications of its decision for sports. In particular, at [13] Sutton becomes the latest in a string of the reported sports cases to evoke s.1 of the Compensation Act, and the first to be applied to a regular ‘club’ environment as opposed to ‘casual or one-off’ sessions (Reynolds, Uren, Harris, Poppleton).

1 Deterrent effect of potential liability

A court considering a claim in negligence or breach of statutory duty may, in determining whether the defendant should have taken particular steps to meet a standard of care (whether by taking precautions against a risk or otherwise), have regard to whether a requirement to take those steps might–

(a) prevent a desirable activity from being undertaken at all, to a particular extent or in a particular way, or

(b) discourage persons from undertaking functions in connection with a desirable activity.

 Longmore LJ in concluding was also at pains to highlight that the Court “must not be too astute to impose duties of care which would make rugby playing as a whole more subject to interference from courts than it should be” [18]

I suppose this begs the obvious question, when should courts interfere?

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In a country where ice hockey and cold beer go hand in glove, two of Canada’s biggest breweries have been battling it out over sponsorship rights as the official beer of the National Hockey League. On 3 June 2011, Newbould J. of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice held that the NHL and Labatt Brewing Company Limited reached a binding sponsorship agreement on 12 November 2010 which would have run from July 1, 2011 — June 30, 2014. As such, the NHL was consequently not free to enter into a similar but superior agreement with Molson Coors Canada Inc. on 8 February 2011. The NHL and Molson appealed and the court held in their favor on 12 July 2011.

In a ruling which has left Labatts all wet (and sudsy), the Court of Appeal for Ontario found that Newbould J. erred by making his finding in a manner not anchored to the pleadings, evidence, positions or submissions of any of the parties to the case. It was accordingly “procedurally unfair, or contrary to natural justice” for this conclusion to be reached [5]. Citing Rodaro v. Royal Bank of Canada (2002), 59 O.R. (3d) 74 (C.A.), the court held that a theory of liability which emerges for the first time in the reasons for judgment is never tested in the crucible of the adversarial process and thus raises concerns about the reliability of that theory [6].

It is noteworthy that Labatt did not plead that the parties had reached a binding sponsorship agreement on 12 November 2010 [12]. Labatt did not assert during the application hearing that a binding sponsorship agreement existed between the parties and expressly disavowed that it had reached a binding sponsorship agreement with the NHL [13]. The appeals court accepted the NHL’s submission that if it had known that the existence of a binding sponsorship agreement between the NHL and Labatt was at issue, it would have conducted its defence to Labatt’s application in a very different fashion [15].

While hockey is a small fish in the big frozen pond of professional sport relative to their much larger counterparts in football, baseball and basketball, there is still significant money to be made (and lost). Kyle Norrington, marketing director of Budweiser and regional brands for Labatt in Canada, commented in an affidavit filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on the relationship of hockey and beer: “The NHL and the access it provides to Labatt … is the single greatest opportunity to grow Labatt’s share in Canada. The nexus of sports / heritage / emotional / tradition in hockey has no other Canadian comparable.” In contrast to the $37.2 million over three years agreement that Labatt was pursuing, the Molson deal is worth a reported $375 million over seven years.

It is the combination of the trial judge’s analysis of the renewal option in the 2002 Labatt/NHL agreement and his conclusion that a binding agreement was reached at the 12 November 2010 meeting that created the procedural unfairness problem [18]. Quoting Cronk J.A. in Grass (Litigation Guardian of) v. Women’s College Hospital (2005), 75 O.R. (3d) 85 (C.A.), leave to appeal refused, [2005] S.C.C.A. No. 310, the appeals court held that, “at the end of the day, the issues between the parties are defined by and confined to those pleaded” [53]. Since this did not happen, the NHL and Molson were denied procedural fairness and the judgment of Newbould J. was set aside.

Revenge is a beverage best served cold. Earlier this year, Coors Light lost the bragging and sponsorship rights as the official beer of the National Football League to Anheuser-Busch for $1.2 billion over six years. The $375 million Molson Coors/NHL deal reportedly includes approximately $100 million for the rights, $100 million in guaranteed advertising buys and $100 million in activation costs for staging special promotions to capitalize on its rights.

On 6 October 2011, Labatt disclosed that it had received confirmation that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice had dismissed its suit against the NHL and Molson Coors thus ending this round of the battle of the beers. The court plans to release the reasons behind its decision at a later date and Labatt said it would review its legal options at that time.

At the time of the incident, RCMP spokesman Staff Sgt. Grant Learned correctly noted that the investigation will hinge on whether ‘the nature of that contact [the cross-check and stomp] was so outside the boundaries of acceptable contact that the nature of misconduct was egregious and bordering into that realm of criminality?’

The courts in BC are not unique in their inconsistent approach to adjudicating sports violence. At its core, the courts struggle with how to accommodate the role of violence in sport and the extent to which participants consent to injurious force which is prohibited by the rules but may be permitted within the culture of the game. For example, in the rugby case of R v. TNB (BCPC 0117) in 2009, Honourable Judge S.D. Frame ruled that players consent to violent contact within and certain violent conduct outwith the rules of the game. Cognizant of the playing culture of the game, Frame J. stated that the ‘amalgam of rules includes the legitimate strategy of intimidation of the opposite team by head-butting, eye gouging, elbowing, raking and punching’ and noted that ‘none of these infractions is permitted by the written rules but it is accepted by the unwritten code of conduct at this level of play in the game of rugby.’ The defendant was found not guilty on the grounds that the punch was randomly thrown and not intended to target and hit the injured plaintiff and, as such, fit within rugby’s unwritten but accepted code of conduct.

With respect to J. Frame’s judgment in R v. TNB, if the lacrosse head stomping allegations are proven true, it is hoped that the court will make a bright line distinction that such conduct is criminal – period – irrespective of any fantasies relating to the ‘unwritten code’ or playing culture of the game, and that the proper means of penalizing such behaviour is not by a referee but through the courts.

The point here isn’t to chronicle the injuries and deaths in sport but to rhetorically ask – in connecting the dots between these sports which each possess varying degrees of inherent risk and its athletes who consent to those risks ordinarily inherent in the sport – despite the different outcomes from brain injuries to fatalities, is acknowledgement and assumption of those risks enough or should more be done?

Or are these athletes participating on their own free will, motivated by vanity and insecurity (apologies to Simple Minds), and benefiting from what the market will bear? Or are they being exploited by commercial forces that regard them as collateral damage in their pursuit of the bottom line?

Just asking.