Opinion ID: 2031164
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Organizational Defendants

Text: Plaintiff's second amended complaint contains three counts, counts II, IV and VI, that allege negligence on the part of the organizational defendants, Redhawk Hockey, the Hockey Association, and the Officials Association. The organizational defendants initially contend that the negligence counts are barred by the contact sports exception and, therefore, that the appellate court erred in reversing the circuit court's dismissal of these counts. Whether the contact sports exception may be applied to a nonparticipant in a sporting event, such as the organizational defendants here, is an issue of first impression in this court. In considering this issue, both parties direct our attention to the Supreme Court of California's decision in Kahn v. East Side Union High School District, 31 Cal.4th 990, 75 P.3d 30, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d 103 (2003). In Kahn, the plaintiff was a novice member of a high school swim team who broke her neck after diving off a starting block into a shallow racing pool. The plaintiff filed suit against the school district and her swimming coach, alleging that she had been inadequately instructed in how to safely dive into a racing pool and had been pushed beyond her capabilities. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The intermediate appellate court affirmed, holding that shallow-water diving presents dangers that are inherent in competitive swimming and that coaches who merely challenge their students to move beyond their current level of performance have not breached a duty of care. Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 997-1002, 75 P.3d at 33-37, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 107-12. On appeal, the Supreme Court of California considered the standard of care that should be applied to the defendants. The court noted that a number of cases had declined to impose liability on a coach or instructor on the basis of ordinary negligence in urging students to go beyond their current level of competence. In these cases, the court noted, the analysis had focused generally on the circumstances of the sport and its inherent risks, the relationship of the parties to the sport and to each other, and whether imposing broader liability on coaches and instructors would harm the sport or cause it to be changed or abandoned. Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 1006, 75 P.3d at 39, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 115. Discussing these same criteria, the Supreme Court of California noted that the risks associated with learning a sport may themselves be inherent risks of the sport, and that an instructor or coach generally does not increase the risk of harm inherent in learning the sport simply by urging the student to strive to excel or to reach a new level of competence. (Emphasis in original.) Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 1006, 75 P.3d at 40, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 115. The court also noted that [t]o impose a duty to mitigate the inherent risks of learning a sport by refraining from challenging a student, as these cases explain, could have a chilling effect on the enterprise of teaching and learning skills that are necessary to the sport. At a competitive level, especially, this chilling effect is undesirable. Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 1007, 75 P.3d at 40, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 115. The court concluded that an ordinary negligence standard was inappropriate, stating: In the present case, we recognize that the relationship of a sports instructor or coach to a student or athlete is different from the relationship between coparticipants in a sport. But because a significant part of an instructor's or coach's role is to challenge or `push' a student or athlete to advance in his or her skill level and to undertake more difficult tasks, and because the fulfillment of such a role could be improperly chilled by too stringent a standard of potential legal liability, we conclude that the same general standard should apply in cases in which an instructor's alleged liability rests primarily on a claim that he or she challenged the player to perform beyond his or her capacity or failed to provide adequate instruction or supervision before directing or permitting a student to perform a particular maneuver that has resulted in injury to the student. A sports instructor maybe found to have breached a duty of care to a student or athlete only if the instructor intentionally injures the student or engages in conduct that is reckless in the sense that it is `totally outside the range of the ordinary activity' ( ibid. ) involved in teaching or coaching the sport. Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 996, 75 P.3d at 32-33, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 106-07. Applying that standard of care to the case before it, the Supreme Court of California then concluded that there were material questions of fact as to whether the standard had been breached. Accordingly, the court reversed the lower courts' judgments granting summary judgment. Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 1011-13, 75 P.3d at 43-44, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 119-21. See also Kavanagh v. Trustees of Boston University, 440 Mass. 195, 204-06, 795 N.E.2d 1170, 1178-80 (2003) (declining to apply an ordinary negligence to a defendant coach who allegedly caused his player to injure an opposing player). Although Kahn is factually distinguishable from the present case, the general principles which the decision relied upon to determine the standard of care for a nonparticipant are persuasive, consistent with Pfister, and applicable here. As the appellate court below noted, plaintiff's essential allegation against all three organizational defendants is that they failed to adequately enforce the rule against bodychecking from behind. 369 Ill.App.3d at 918, 308 Ill.Dec. 81, 860 N.E.2d 1163. Yet, as noted earlier, rules violations are inevitable in contact sports and are generally considered an inherent risk of playing the game. Pfister, 167 Ill.2d at 427, 212 Ill. Dec. 668, 657 N.E.2d 1013, quoting Pfister, 256 Ill.App.3d at 191-92, 194 Ill.Dec. 618, 627 N.E.2d 1260 (Green, J., dissenting). Further, in an organized contact sport, such as the one at issue here, the enforcement of the rules directly affects the way in which the sport is played. Imposing too strict a standard of liability on the enforcement of those rules would have a chilling effect on vigorous participation in the sport. Finally, as the organizational defendants point out, coaching and officiating decisions involve subjective decisionmaking that often occurs in the middle of a fast moving game. It is difficult to observe all the contact that takes place during an ice hockey game, and it is difficult to imagine activities more prone to second-guessing than coaching and officiating. Applying an ordinary negligence standard to these decisions would open the door to a surfeit of litigation and would impose an unfair burden on organizational defendants such as those in the case at bar. Accordingly, we conclude that, under the facts alleged here, the contact sports exception applies to the organizational defendants. To successfully plead a cause of action for failing to adequately enforce the rules in an organized full-contact sport, plaintiff must allege that the defendant acted with intent to cause the injury or that the defendant engaged in conduct totally outside the range of the ordinary activity ( Knight, 3 Cal.4th at 320, 834 P.2d at 711, 11 Cal.Rptr.2d at 17) involved with coaching or officiating the sport. Because the contact sports exception applies to the organizational defendants, the circuit court properly dismissed counts II, IV, and VI of plaintiff's second amended complaint, the counts alleging negligence against the organizational defendants. The appellate court below, however, concluded that the negligence counts could go forward. According to the appellate court, plaintiff had successfully pled willful and wanton conduct on the part of the player defendants and the contact sports exception does not protect the organizational defendants for their negligence leading to the allegedly willful and wanton conduct. 369 Ill.App.3d at 916, 308 Ill.Dec. 81, 860 N.E.2d 1163. We disagree. As discussed above, whether the contact sports exception applies to a nonparticipant defendant is a policy determination that rests on the circumstances of the sport and its inherent risks, the relationship of the parties to the sport and to each other, and whether imposing broader liability on the defendant would harm the sport or cause it to be changed or abandoned. Kahn, 31 Cal.4th at 1006, 75 P.3d at 39, 4 Cal.Rptr.3d at 115. Application of the exception is not based, as the appellate court concluded, on whether the defendant's conduct causes a third party to violate a standard of care. The appellate court erred in allowing the negligence counts to proceed. The judgment of the circuit court dismissing counts II, IV, and VI is affirmed. As currently pled, nothing in counts III, V, or VII of plaintiff's second amended complaint, the counts alleging willful and wanton conduct on the part of the organizational defendants, alleges conduct totally outside the range of ordinary activity involved with coaching or officiating the sport of ice hockey. Plaintiff does not allege that the organizational defendants completely failed to enforce the rule against bodychecking from behind and, indeed, the second amended complaint alleges that all the players in the game at issue were wearing a stop warning on the back of their jerseys in an effort to enforce the rule. Moreover, as noted previously, although plaintiff's second amended complaint alleged, in counts III and V, that Redhawk Hockey and the Hockey Association actively encouraged violation of the rule against bodychecking from behind, plaintiff conceded in the circuit court that he could not plead any facts, under Supreme Court Rule 137, to support that conclusory allegation. We conclude, therefore, that the appellate court properly affirmed the circuit court's dismissal of counts III, V, and VII. However, we again note that the standard of care for the organizational defendants, while consistent with the rationale of Pfister, was not explicit in that decision. As we concluded with respect to count I, and to avoid any unfairness to plaintiff, we remand this cause to the circuit court with instructions to permit plaintiff to amend counts III, V, and VII of his complaint in conformance with the standard of care set forth in this opinion, if he is able to do so.