Opinion ID: 4554027
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: an actor undertook to render services to

Text: another; (2) . . . of a kind the actor should have recognized as necessary for the protection of [the plaintiff]; (3) the actor failed to exercise reasonable care in the performance of the undertaking; (4) the failure . . . resulted in physical harm to the 3 The NFL argues that Plaintiffs are judicially estopped from asserting a voluntary undertaking theory because it was not raised at the time of Dent I. We disagree. Plaintiffs’ decision to pursue a voluntary undertaking theory in the face of an earlier assertion that their negligence per se argument was the “primary duty at issue,” does not rise to the level of a “clearly inconsistent” position. New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 750 (2001). DENT V. NAT’L FOOTBALL LEAGUE 13 [plaintiff]; and (5) (a) the actor’s carelessness increased the risk of such harm . . . . Mayall, 909 F.3d at 1066 (citing Artiglio v. Corning Inc., 957 P.2d 1313, 1318 (Cal. 1998)). Plaintiffs liken this case to Mayall, in which we concluded that a negligence claim based on voluntary undertaking should survive 12(b)(6) dismissal where a putative class of youth water polo players alleged that, “by failing to establish a concussionmanagement and return-to-play protocol for its youth water polo league, USA Water Polo failed to exercise reasonable care in the performance of its undertaking—ensuring a healthy and safe environment for its players.” Id. at 1067. The Mayall plaintiffs asserted that USA Water Polo “regulate[d] every aspect of water polo, including the enactment of rules regarding player safety and health,” and USA Water Polo’s own bylaws “require[d] it to ensure proper safety precautions have been taken to protect the personal welfare of the athletes” at its events. Id. Although the team coaches and trainers were ultimately responsible for the decision to put a player back in the game after that player suffered a potential concussion, USA Water Polo itself could still be liable for failing to promote regulations that may have avoided return-to-play injuries. Id. at 1067–68. Similarly, the TAC alleges that the NFL “voluntarily undertook a duty” to “ensure the proper recordkeeping, administration and distribution of Medications,” but ultimately failed to protect players due to its “business culture in which everyone’s financial interest depends on supplying Medications to keep players in the game.” Plaintiffs support this statement with factual allegations that the NFL created a drug oversight program in 1973, which “required teams and their doctors to report to the NFL regarding the administration of Medications.” Beginning in 14 DENT V. NAT’L FOOTBALL LEAGUE at least the early 1990s, the NFL allegedly “began auditing clubs’ compliance with [federal drug] laws,” such as “the types of drugs being administered, the amounts in which they were administered,” and related information. Plaintiffs also claim that the NFL has “mandated procedures to control the drug distribution system,” including the registration of the Clubs’ facilities as storage facilities for controlled substances, the use of tracking software by SportPharm, and periodic drug-use audits by the NFL Security Office. NFL Club trainers and doctors are supposedly “mandated by the NFL to meet on a yearly basis” with NFL officials, and doctors provide “reports directly to the League about the Medications.” The NFL also purportedly funded studies on Toradol use, which resulted in Toradol guidelines that were not followed. Furthermore, Plaintiffs claim that the NFL is aware of improper handling of pain medications and that its “standard of treatment for professional athletes [is] ‘outside the lines.’” A document written by a non-Club doctor, which was apparently commissioned by the NFL, bluntly states that both “appropriate (properly prescribed and monitored) and inappropriate opioid and non-opioid pain medication use” are “much more prevalent in the NFL than in virtually any other industry, population or endeavor,” which “means that there is a shared responsibility and joint culpability for the problem.” And the NFL was alerted, via the same report, that players “who would otherwise not play or play at the same level of competitiveness may be induced by a pain medication and their personal financial/reputational incentives to play under conditions that could exacerbate their injuries and hinder their recovery,” and “will be at longer-term risk for developing abuse or addiction.” DENT V. NAT’L FOOTBALL LEAGUE 15 The NFL has promulgated rules such as the “NFL Prescription Drug Program and Protocol,” with the purpose (as that document allegedly states) of “provid[ing] guidelines for the utilization of all prescription drugs provided to players and team personnel by physicians and other healthcare providers and associated the [sic] NFL clubs” and “to ensure [] appropriate handling (purchase, distribution, dispensing, administration and recordkeeping)” in compliance with “regulations of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as they apply to controlled substances.” And yet, “when the DEA investigated the clubs [in 2010], nothing had changed. The clubs still did not understand—and were in woeful noncompliance with—the law regarding controlled substances, as evidenced by the many, many violations thereof.” Players continued to face the heightened risks associated with playing through their injuries while receiving improperly handled and administered medications, and the NFL allegedly was aware of this from its audit results but nonetheless turned a blind eye to maximize its revenues. We agree with Plaintiffs that their allegations read much like those in Mayall. 4 We, and other courts, have previously noted that the NFL “promotes, organizes, and regulates professional football in the United States,” just as USA Water Polo regulates its sport. Dent I, 902 F.3d at 1114 (quoting Williams v. Nat’l Football League, 582 F.3d 863, 868 (8th Cir. 2009)). Building on this baseline, the TAC 4 We reject the NFL’s attempt to distinguish Mayall on the basis that it involved youth (rather than adult) athletes. Nothing in Mayall suggests that the logic or holding of the case should be cabined that way. The focus is instead on the harm that results from prematurely returning athletes to play after they have already suffered an injury. Mayall, 909 F.3d at 1067. 16 DENT V. NAT’L FOOTBALL LEAGUE paints a picture of the NFL’s “mandated” and “required” audits, oversight, and procedures regarding drug distribution across member Clubs, as well as the NFL’s failure to enforce rules that it knows are necessary to avoid further injury to players. These allegations support Plaintiffs’ theory that the NFL undertook “the duty of overseeing [the] administration” of the distribution of pain medications to players and is aware that it should be providing protections. The NFL argues that no court “has ever held that a professional sports league owed such a duty to intervene and stop mistreatment by the league’s independent clubs” and there is “no reason to break new ground here.” But the NFL misconstrues the alleged duty as one to “intervene” in the Clubs’ drug management, rather than for the NFL to properly exercise a voluntarily undertaken duty to create and then enforce league-wide rules regarding player safety and drug distribution. “Although defendants generally have no legal duty to eliminate (or protect a plaintiff against) risks inherent in the sport itself, it is well established that defendants generally do have a duty to use due care not to increase the risks to a participant over and above those inherent in the sport.” Mayall, 909 F.3d at 1061 (quoting Knight v. Jewett, 834 P.2d 696, 708 (Cal. 1992)). See also Wattenbarger v. Cincinnati Reds, Inc., 33 Cal. Rptr. 2d 732, 738 (Cal. Ct. App. 1994) (duty of care exists to protect baseball tryout participants from aggravating sustained injuries, in part because it is “not at all unforeseeable a participant will attempt to push his body beyond its capabilities” to obtain a position on a “professional sports team”). We believe Plaintiffs’ allegations are sufficient to raise a claim that the NFL undertook such a duty here. And the breach alleged by Plaintiffs—physical harm that resulted from their premature return to play after suffering DENT V. NAT’L FOOTBALL LEAGUE 17 otherwise debilitating injuries masked by over-prescription of pain-relieving medications—resembles the alleged failure on the part of USA Water Polo to “use its authority to provide routine and important safety measures” regarding return-to-play methods after an injury has been sustained. Mayall, 909 F.3d at 1067. See also Wattenbarger, 33 Cal. Rptr. 2d at 738 (returning an athlete to play after he has suffered an injury is clearly a bad idea and it “requires no depth of analysis” to reach that conclusion in the context of a voluntary undertaking claim against a professional sports team). Despite the NFL’s one-step-removed relationship to the players, it was within the NFL’s control to promulgate rules or guidelines that could improve safety for players across the league. See Mayall, 909 F.3d at 1068 (potential liability for USA Water Polo as the “rule-making authority”); Ileto, 349 F.3d at 1207 (holding gun manufacturers liable because they were “in the best position to protect against the risk of harm” caused by the purchase of illegal guns from all of the different sellers to whom they distributed). The TAC even alleges that the NFL has already demonstrated its ability to create better policies, regarding Toradol use for example, but has failed to enforce them. Only one aspect of the voluntary undertaking test remains: whether the TAC includes allegations that “the actor’s carelessness increased the risk of [physical] harm” to Plaintiffs. Mayall, 909 F.3d at 1066 (presenting increased risk as one of three options sufficient to satisfy element five). In the TAC, each player recounts the drugs he recalls being given during his NFL career and the injuries he suffered on the field that were allegedly “caused, aggravated, extended, worsened, prolonged, exacerbated, intensified, perpetuated, protracted, or made permanent by the wrongful administration of Medications to him.” Plaintiffs state that some “doctors they saw after their careers concluded . . . that 18 DENT V. NAT’L FOOTBALL LEAGUE some of their ailments might be the result of the amount of Medications they took during their NFL careers.” Additionally, we have already previewed Plaintiffs’ contention that the NFL received a medical report stating that the organization’s policies regarding drug distribution create “short and long term risks of pain medication use and abuse.” We conclude that these are adequate allegations that the NFL’s carelessness in allowing drugs to be distributed as they were increased the risk of harm to Plaintiffs. See id. at 1067 (USA Water Polo “increased the risk of secondary concussions to players who improperly returned to play”). All elements of the voluntary undertaking theory of negligence have been properly pled. Plaintiffs sufficiently allege a voluntary undertaking theory of negligence to survive a motion to dismiss, and the district court erred in its conclusion to the contrary.