As anyone who works in the sports and recreation industries should know, the number one cause of lawsuits is negligence. In most of these cases, the facility or its employees failed to act with the level of care that was required of them under the circumstances. Perhaps the facility or its employees failed to provide proper supervision or medical care, when it owed such a duty to the people using the facility.
Historically, if the plaintiff was in any way also negligent in causing their injuries, their contributory negligence acted as a complete bar to recovering damages for the negligence of the facility or employees. Under contributory negligence, the degree of the plaintiff’s negligence is irrelevant. Even if the plaintiff was only 1% negligent, he or she would receive nothing from a defendant who was 99% negligent.
While contributory negligence is still valid in a small number of states, most states have deemed it unfair and replaced contributory negligence with the doctrine of comparative negligence. Under comparative negligence, the court attributes a percentage to both the plaintiff and defendant that describes or measures the individual’s negligent contribution or fault in proximately causing the accident or injury. This allows a plaintiff to recover damages against a negligent defendant for the defendant’s share of the blame. For example, a plaintiff who was 35% negligent can recover compensation for 65% of his or her damages.
In applying comparative negligence or fault, some states will use something called “modified” comparative negligence. Under this doctrine, a plaintiff can only recover a percentage of his or her damages if their percentage of fault was 50% or less. If the plaintiff’s percentage of negligence or fault is more than 50%, the plaintiff will not recover anything.
Other states, however, use a “pure” form of comparative negligence. If the plaintiff was 65% negligent, he or she could still recover 35% of his or her damages. Therefore, if the plaintiff suffered $100,000 in damages, they would still be able to collect $35,000 in damages. A recent case that illustrates how the courts apply comparative negligence is Ronne v. Dumont Board of Education, 2024 WL 3410017.
Reasonable risk and rhabdomyolysis
During the summer before his first year in high school, Joseph Ronne began working out at a local gym. Once school started, Ronne, who was determined to make the varsity baseball team, would go to the gym five times a week in the mornings before school and occasionally again after school.
In February, before tryouts started, Ronne received a group text message informing him of a workout in the high school weight room. The workout, which was organized by the team captains, was being run by Marc Ferrara, the assistant junior varsity baseball coach, even though he had no certification in strength training. After the players warmed up, Ferrara had the players pair up and do four rounds of three one-minute exercises — kettlebell swings, squats with a weight, and burpees — during which they would try to complete as many repetitions as possible followed by one minute of rest.
Although Ferrara did not conduct a pre-assessment to determine what weight the students should use for the workout, the students were told to use a dumbbell that they “felt comfortable with.” According to Ferrara, he instructed the students not to use a weight over 30 pounds so that they could complete the workout and as many reps as possible. Despite these instructions, Ronne claimed that he used a 40-pound dumbbell because he wanted to impress the coaches.
Ferrara stated that he supervised the workout and walked around the room to monitor students as they completed the exercises. Ferrara claimed that he did not notice anything unusual about Ronne while he was working out and that Ronne did not complain to him during or after the workout. After he finished the workout, however, Ronne started to feel extremely sore, and he was having trouble breathing. Two days after the first workout, even though he was still feeling ill, Ronne went to another scheduled workout at the school. After Ronne ran two laps around the track, Ferrara noticed that he looked “fluish” and told him he should go home. In pain and unable to sleep, Ronne’s mother took her son to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with traumatic rhabdomyolysis and compartment syndrome. As a result, Ronne underwent two surgeries to release the pressure on his back and remove dead or necrotic muscle, the result of extreme muscle exercise and muscle fatigue.
Rhabdomyolysis occurs when a person trains so intensely that the muscles break down beyond a point where they can easily stabilize or recover. Compartment syndrome occurs when the muscles are damaged and swell so much that they do not absorb any blood, which shuts off circulation and damages nerves.
Which comparative negligence?
As a result of his injuries, Ronne sued Ferrara and the school district for negligent supervision. As previoiusly noted, negligence is the failure to exercise the degree of care that a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under similar circumstances. In addition to considering whether Ferrara and the school district were negligent, the court asked the jury to also consider whether Ronne negligently contributed to his injuries by over-exertion.
In assessing Ronne’s negligence, the court noted that Ronne, in seeking to impress his coaches, chose a heavier weight than the other students, did not stop to take a break during the workout despite acknowledging he knew he could, and did not hydrate on breaks. In addition, even though he was in “terrible” and “severe pain,” Ronne chose to attend the second workout instead of seeking medical attention. Based on those facts, the jury concluded that Ronne was 60% at fault for his injuries.
Since Ronne could, under comparative negligence, only recover damages if his percentage of fault was 50% or less, Ronne appealed the jury’s finding. On appeal, Ronne argued that there was no evidence to support the jury’s finding that he was negligent. He argued that he could only assume the reasonable risks associated with an intense workout — such as thirst, muscle fatigue, nausea and weakness. Since he did not know that the workout could result in rhabdomyolysis, he argued he could not have been negligent in causing his injuries.
The court of appeals disagreed. The court noted that the trial court instructed the jury to determine whether Ronne and defendant exercised reasonable care in their actions surrounding the workout and specifically whether the parties ought to have foreseen, under the circumstances, that the natural and probable consequence of their act or omission to act would have been some form of injury.
Ronne, the court held, did not have to understand there was an unreasonable risk of being injured for the jury to find him negligent. Instead, the jury only needed to conclude that Ronne could have foreseen that overexerting himself in a workout could result in a risk of harm or injury. Since the jury concluded that Ronne’s conduct during the workout — using a 40-pound dumbbell, not drinking water, not resting — was negligent and the proximate cause of his injury and resulting damages, the court of appeals upheld the decision of the jury that Ronne was 60% at fault.
Since Ronne was found more than 50% at fault for his own injuries, under the doctrine of “modified” comparative negligence, Ferrara and the school district were not held liable for any of the damages he suffered.
Basic standards of care
Even though the school district was not required to pay damages because of Ronne’s injuries, the case still provides several important lessons for coaches and athletics administrators.
First, it is important to remember that the coach and school district were still found negligent, and in those states that employ the “pure” comparative negligence doctrine, Ferrara and the school district would be responsible to pay 40% of Ronne’s damages. Therefore, it is important that schools and coaches understand their duty when supervising student workouts.
Whether in the weight room or during other forms of exercise, coaches need to ensure that all students are safe and not endangering themselves. This includes conducting pre-workout evaluations to establish basepoints, requiring all students to rest and drink fluids periodically during workouts, and ensuring that anyone leading a workout, especially coaches or other school personnel, has proper training and education. When schools — be they high schools or colleges — fail to meet these basic standards of care, they are inviting a lawsuit.
