Court Opinion

ID: 9860304
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:17:38.482498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:20:42.028755
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: I would affirm the judgment of the appellate court. The decision below strikes an appropriate balance between the goal of encouraging participation in sports and games and the need to protect participants from unreasonable risks of harm. As the appellate court discerned, the key inquiry here is whether the conduct in question is sanctioned by the rules, if any, of the pastime being pursued. This approach corresponds to the parties’ expectations, and to their justified reliance on the rules of the game as a means of establishing and regulating the obligations owed by one participant to another. Perhaps the signal feature of this area of law is that it can involve activities in which some measure of physical contact is expected in the normal course of competition. The participants’ consent to these intrusions on their personal autonomy must play a central role in any analysis of the circumstances under which a participant should be permitted to recover for injuries incurred during a game. It cannot be denied that participation in sports necessarily implies the player’s consent to conduct that in different circumstances would be considered negligence, or even a battery. Section 50 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, regarding consent to intentional conduct, is instructive. Comment b to section 50 states: "Taking part in a game manifests a willingness to submit to such bodily contacts or restrictions of liberty as are permitted by its rules or usages. Participating in such a game does not manifest consent to contacts which are prohibited by rules or usages of the game if such rules or usages are designed to protect the participants and not merely to secure the better playing of the game as a test of skill. This is true although the player knows that those with or against whom he is playing are habitual violators of such rules.” (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 50, Comment b, at 86 (1965).) As the appellate court concluded, similar principles can be applied to actions pursued under a negligence theory. Unlike the majority, I do not believe that persons who are struck by oversized bat rings that have been improperly placed on baseball bats, to cite one example (see Stewart v. D&R Welding Supply Co. (1977), 51 Ill. App. 3d 597), should be required to plead and prove willful and wanton misconduct if they are to recover for their injuries. I agree with the court below, and with Justice Harrison, that negligence should be available as a basis for recovery. The negligence standard is flexible and can be adapted to a variety of circumstances; conduct that is actionable in one setting will not be so in another. In allowing actions for sports-related injuries to proceed on a negligence theory, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin noted: "The very fact that an injury is sustained during the course of a game in which the participants voluntarily engaged and in which the likelihood of bodily contact and injury could reasonably be foreseen materially affects the manner in which each player’s conduct is to be evaluated under the negligence standard.” Lestina v. West Bend Mutual Insurance Co. (1993), 176 Wis. 2d 901, 913, 501 N.W.2d 28, 33. The appellate court suggested an inquiry that could readily frame the issues presented here. (256 Ill. App. 3d 186, 190-91.) The trier of fact could consider, among other things, whether the conduct at issue was a game and whether the rules, if there were any, permitted the type of contact complained of by the plaintiff. Rather than being irrelevant, as the majority asserts, the appellate court’s analysis correctly focuses on the circumstances in which the present injury was incurred.