Court Opinion

ID: 9860305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:17:38.485459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:20:42.645755
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, also dissenting: It is unnecessary to license negligence in order to foster vigorous and enthusiastic participation in contact sports. Like the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Lestina v. West Bend Mutual Insurance Co. (1993), 176 Wis. 2d 901, 910-11, 501 N.W.2d 28, 32, I am unpersuaded that adopting the standard of ordinary negligence, as opposed to willful and wanton misconduct, will have a chilling effect upon participation in such sports. Negligence is no more a necessary part of vigorous play than is intentional misconduct, and injuries that occur as a result of ordinary negligence are no more to be countenanced than are injuries that occur as a result of either intentional or willful and wanton misconduct. If negligence were discountenanced rather than sanctioned in contact sports, one might reasonably expect a decline in not only the number but also the severity of injuries that happen during their play. In adopting ordinary negligence as the standard of care for participants competing in team contact sports for recreation, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin reiterated the axiom that this standard is readily adaptable to a wide range of situations because it requires merely that a person exercise ordinary care under the circumstances. (Lestina, 176 Wis. 2d at 913, 501 N.W.2d at 33.) To state the obvious, an act that is negligent under some circumstances might well not be so when it occurs during play of a contact sport. The remarkable flexibility of the standard of care of ordinary negligence enables the trier of fact to determine whether the defendant acted as a reasonably careful person would have done under the circumstances of participation in a contact sport in the same way that it permits triers of fact to make the same assessment concerning the myriad other circumstances with which they are confronted daily. Juries are quite as capable of identifying ordinary care on a playing field as they are of perceiving it everywhere else. On that playing field ordinary care is not too much to expect. Because I would hold that the standard of care for participants in contact sports is that of ordinary negligence, I would affirm the judgment of the appellate court.