Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/440/440mass195.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:14:19+00:00

Document:
Education, Private colleges and universities. Negligence, College, Vicarious Liability, Athletics, Duty to prevent harm, Foreseeability of harm.
CIVIL ACTION commenced in the Superior Court Department on May 6, 1999.
A motion to dismiss was heard by Mitchell J. Sikora, J.; the case was heard by him on a motion for summary judgment; and final judgment was entered by Peter M. Lauriat, J.
Michael J. O'Reilly for the plaintiff.
Lawrence S. Elswit for the defendants.
negligent in that they "took no steps to prevent this act." Against the coach, Kavanagh also alleged both negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A judge in the Superior Court dismissed the counts alleging vicarious liability and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the remaining counts for negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Kavanagh appealed, and we granted the defendants' application for direct appellate review. We now affirm.
1. Facts. On December 22, 1998, the university hosted a men's intercollegiate basketball game against Manhattan College. The plaintiff, Kenneth Kavanagh, was a member of the Manhattan College team. Following a contested rebound during the second half, the referee blew his whistle to signal a foul, and some elbowing and shoving ensued among a few of the competing players. When Kavanagh intervened to break up a developing scuffle between one of his teammates and a university player, he was punched in the nose by another university player, Levar Folk. Folk was immediately ejected from the game. Kavanagh was treated for what turned out to be a broken nose and returned to play later in the same game.
At the time of this incident, Folk was in his senior year. He had been recruited for the university's basketball team by its coach, Dennis Wolff, and came to the university on a full athletic scholarship. As part of the recruitment process, Wolff had met with Folk's high school coaches, who described Folk as a "good kid" and expressed no reservations about his character or comportment on the basketball court. Until the incident involving Kavanagh, Folk had not been involved in any physical altercation during a game and had never been ejected from a game. He had no prior history of physical confrontations or fights with either his own teammates or opposing players.
games, and Folk resumed team play thereafter without incident until the December, 1998, game against Manhattan College.
Although Kavanagh characterizes the December 22, 1998, game as "the most physical" he ever played, the number of penalties called by the referees was within a normal range. Up until the time he struck Kavanagh during the second half, no technical fouls had been called on Folk, and no university players had been ejected. Kavanagh describes the university team's play as follows: "with reckless abandon," "elbows to people's faces, trying to steal the ball," "after plays, bumping people," "holding you with both their hands, walking by, getting the elbow." He also claimed that Coach Wolff incited the team's aggressiveness by yelling encouragement from the sideline, not substituting for players who were allegedly elbowing opposing players, and calling out praise for his players, despite the fact that they were, in Kavanagh's view, committing fouls. [Note 3] Wolff denied that he had ever instructed Folk (or any other player) to hit or fight with any opposing player, and Kavanagh presented no contrary evidence.
Pursuant to National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules, Folk was automatically suspended from the following game. No form of penalty or discipline was imposed on the university team, on Coach Wolff, or on any of his assistants.
When Wolff talked to Folk about the incident sometime after the game, Folk's explanation for his misconduct was that he "lost it."
2. Discussion. a. Vicarious liability. Kavanagh contends that Folk's status as a scholarship athlete playing for the university made him an agent of the university and that the university is therefore vicariously liable for any torts committed by Folk while playing for the university's basketball team. We reject the proposition that the doctrine of respondeat superior renders schools liable for the acts of their students, and decline to treat scholarship students any differently from paying students for these purposes.
"Broadly speaking, respondeat superior is the proposition that an employer, or master, should be held vicariously liable for the torts of its employee, or servant, committed within the scope of employment." Dias v. Brigham Med. Assocs., Inc., 438 Mass. 317 , 319-320 (2002), citing Restatement (Third) of Agency § 2.04 (Tent. Draft No. 2 2001). In determining whether an employer-employee relationship exists, various factors are to be considered, including "the method of payment (e.g., whether the employee receives a W-2 form from the employer), and whether the parties themselves believe they have created an employer-employee relationship." Id. at 322, citing Restatement (Second) of Agency § 220 (2) (1958).
in the future from a former student's later success, the student does not attend school to do the school's bidding. Kavanagh has cited no authority for the proposition that the relationship between school and student is that of principal and agent, master and servant, or employer and employee.
Rensing v. Indiana State Univ. Bd. of Trustees, supra (same); Coleman v. Western Mich. Univ., 125 Mich. App. 35 (1983) (same); Korellas v. Ohio St. Univ., 121 Ohio Misc. 2d 16 (Ct. Cl. 2002) (scholarship athlete not "employee" of State university for purposes of statute immunizing public employees from suit).
It is undeniable that a successful athletic program, particularly in popular sports like basketball, can garner substantial revenues for colleges and universities, both directly from the sporting activities themselves (e.g., gate receipts, sale of broadcasting rights) and indirectly from the attention those activities attract (e.g., increased alumni giving). In recent years, the enormity of the revenues at stake in collegiate sports has prompted some to recommend that colleges and universities be allowed to compensate student athletes for their "services" and thereby transform them into employees. See Goldman, Sports and Antitrust: Should College Students Be Paid to Play?, 65 Notre Dame L. Rev. 206 (1990); Whang, Necessary Roughness: Imposing a Heightened Duty of Care on Colleges for Injuries of Student-Athletes, 2 Sports Law. J. 25, 36-38 (1995). [Note 5] It is recognized, however, that the current relationship of a player to a school remains that of scholarship student, not employee. Goldman, supra at 251; Whang, supra at 37-38; Comment, Do Universities Have a Special Duty of Care to Protect Student-Athletes from Injury?, 6 Vill. Sports & Ent. L.J. 219, 226 (1999).
only that a student's performance will reflect on the school and will be seen as indicative of the school's quality. Students do not "represent" their schools in the sense of being able to bind their schools to agreements, or to act on behalf of their schools. That Folk and his teammates "represented" the university whenever they competed, in the sense of demonstrating the school's capability to field competent and sportsmanlike teams, did not make the university vicariously liable for any torts committed by players in the course of competition.
b. Negligence. Kavanagh also claims that the university breached a duty to protect him from the allegedly foreseeable assault and battery by Folk. He acknowledges that, as a general rule, there is no duty to protect another from the criminal conduct of a third party. See Luoni v. Berube, 431 Mass. 729 , 731 (2000); Anthony H. v. John G., 415 Mass. 196 , 200 (1993); Mullins v. Pine Manor College, 389 Mass. 47 , 50 (1983). However, such a duty arises when there is a "special relationship" between the defendant and the injured victim. See Luoni v. Berube, supra at 731-732, and cases cited. "[S]pecial relationships exist in several situations, based either on responsibilities imposed by statute or common law (or both). A special relationship, when derived from common law, is predicated on a plaintiff's reasonable expectations and reliance that a defendant will anticipate harmful acts of third persons and take appropriate measures to protect the plaintiff from harm." Id. at 732. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A (1965) (one "who voluntarily takes the custody of another under circumstances such as to deprive the other of his normal opportunities for protection" has special relationship giving rise to duty to aid or protect). Kavanagh contends that his status as a student athlete on an opposing team created such a special relationship between himself and the university.
and safety), and the enormous sums of money schools now reap from their successful teams, are such that schools should be deemed to have a "special relationship" with their own scholarship athletes and a corresponding duty to protect those athletes from injury. See Kleinknecht v. Gettysburg College, 989 F.2d 1360, 1366-1369 (3d Cir. 1993); Davidson v. University of N.C. at Chapel Hill, 142 N.C. App. 544, 554-557 (2001); Whang, Necessary Roughness: Imposing a Heightened Duty of Care on Colleges for Injuries of Student-Athletes, 2 Sports L.J. 25, 39-44 (1995); Comment, Do Universities Have a Special Duty of Care to Protect Student-Athletes from Injury?, 6 Vill. Sports & Ent. L.J. 219, 224-229 (1999); Note, Malpractice During Practice: Should NCAA Coaches Be Liable for Negligence?, 22 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 613, 625-635 (2002); Comment, The Special Relationship Between Student-Athletes and Colleges: An Analysis of a Heightened Duty of Care for the Injuries of Student-Athletes, 7 Marq. Sports L.J. 329, 338-342 (1996). Others have rejected that theory on the ground that there is "nothing different about a student athlete's relationship with a university which would justify the conclusion that a student athlete is a custodial ward of the university while the non-athlete student is an emancipated adult." Orr v. Brigham Young Univ., 960 F. Supp. 1522, 1528 (D. Utah 1994), aff'd, 108 F.3d 1388 (10th Cir. 1997). Cf. Howell v. Calvert, 268 Kan. 698, 701-702 (2000) (no error in judge's refusal to instruct that college owed heightened duty of care to its student athletes).
school hosting rugby tournament and member of another school's club). In short, Kavanagh had no relationship with the university, special or otherwise, and the sources he cites would, if accepted as law here in Massachusetts, place a duty on his own school, Manhattan College, not on the university.
negligent supervision, such as allowing a student with a known propensity towards violence to play or allowing a team to play when there is a total absence of management").
No such evidence has been presented here. On the undisputed facts, neither the university nor its coach had any reason to foresee that Folk would engage in violent behavior. He had never done so before, he had no history suggestive of potential violence on or off the basketball court, [Note 7] and nothing in his conduct during the earlier part of the game provided any warning signal that Folk was on the verge of a violent outburst. Neither the university nor its coach had any duty to protect Kavanagh from a harm that they could not have reasonably foreseen.
competition, we have held that mere negligence on the part of a player does not suffice to impose liability for injuries inflicted by that player during competition. See Gauvin v. Clark, 404 Mass. 450 , 454 (1989). Rather, an injured player must show that the other player's conduct amounted to recklessness before the law will impose liability. See id. Utilizing a standard of recklessness, as opposed to mere negligence, "furthers the policy that '[v]igorous and active participation in sporting events should not be chilled by the threat of litigation.' " Id., quoting Kabella v. Bouschelle, 100 N.M. 461, 465 (1983). See Gray v. Giroux, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 436 , 438-439 (2000) (same policy reasons justify imposing standard of recklessness even in noncontact sports). Just as players are entitled to play aggressively without fear of liability, a coach properly may encourage players to play aggressively. Indeed, a coach's ability to inspire players to compete aggressively is one of a coach's important attributes. The mere possibility that some players might overreact to such inspiration or encouragement should not, by itself, suffice to impose liability on a coach. As we do with the players themselves, we must impose liability only where a coach's behavior amounts to at least recklessness. [Note 10] See Kline v. OID Assocs., Inc., 80 Ohio App. 3d 393, 395-396 (1992) (standard of recklessness applicable to players should also apply to "nonparticipants involved in the game").
refereeing the competition to enforce those rules and impose those penalties. See note 6, supra. It is not up to a coach to remove a player who may, conformably with the rules of the sport and the judgment of the referees, remain in the game despite the infractions allegedly committed. Finally, Kavanagh contends that Wolff yelled encouragement to aggressive players, praising their play when those same players were, in Kavanagh's judgment, committing fouls. Again, the policing of fouls is up to the referees, and the mere fact that a player has committed a foul, or even multiple fouls, does not preclude a coach from encouraging that player to play aggressively. Coach Wolff's behavior, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, amounted to nothing more than aggressive coaching. It did not amount to reckless conduct.
[Note 3] In his deposition, Kavanagh identified two offending players who were allegedly being praised by their coach. Neither of them was Folk.
[Note 4] There are times, of course, when schools do hire students to perform services for the school (for example, work in a school cafeteria or maintenance work), and a school could be vicariously liable for the torts of such a student employee committed within the scope of that employment.
[Note 5] Other commentators suggest different approaches to address the vast discrepancy between the revenues schools receive on account of their star athletes and the value of the scholarships granted to those athletes, many of whom never graduate. See T. Davis, Examining Educational Malpractice Jurisprudence: Should a Cause of Action Be Created for Student-Athletes?, 69 Denv. U.L. Rev. 57 (1992) (recommending that student athletes should have cause of action for schools' failure to provide them with adequate education); R. Davis, Academics and Athletics on a Collision Course, 66 N.D. L. Rev. 239 (1990) (recommending overhaul of NCAA rules to place primary importance on academics and reduce financial rewards to schools).
[Note 6] With respect to any reasonable expectations as to who will protect competitors from excessively rough play or violence during a game, one would ordinarily expect that the referees would perform that function, not the opposing coach, team, or school. It could be argued that players reasonably rely on game officials to protect them from the type of harm at issue here, and Kavanagh suggests in his deposition that the referees repeatedly failed to call fouls on offending university players. However, Kavanagh did not bring any claims against the referees, and we need not address whether our common law would recognize a "special relationship" between players and the officials in charge of refereeing a game.
[Note 7] While Kavanagh makes much of the fact that Folk had previously been suspended from the team, and had been disciplined by university authorities, none of those prior incidents had anything to do with violence or threats of violence.
[Note 8] On appeal, Kavanagh does not press his claim against Wolff for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
[Note 9] Kavanagh contends that the videotape of the game would show both the extremely aggressive play of the university team and Coach Wolff's conduct inciting that allegedly inappropriate aggression. However, Kavanagh did not submit the videotape as part of his opposition to the defendants' motion for summary judgment, and it is therefore not part of the record on appeal. See Currens v. Assessors of Boston, 370 Mass. 249 , 254 (1976); McIsaac v. Cedergren, 54 Mass. App. Ct. 607 , 609 n.3 (2002). The record before us contains only Kavanagh's description of the game and of Wolff's behavior during the game. We therefore rely entirely on Kavanagh's description.
[Note 10] At least one court has held that a player injured by an opponent's violence does not state a claim against the opposing coach unless the coach taught or instructed the offending player to commit the attack. See Nydegger v. Don Bosco Preparatory High Sch., 202 N.J. Super. 535, 539 (1985). Because the facts of the present case do not support even a claim of recklessness, we need not decide whether liability should be imposed only in cases involving a coach's express direction to assault or injure an opponent.

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