Suing for football injuries in NC?
The family of a 25 year old Pop Warner player sued Pop Warner after the man’s suicide due to CTE. Do you think there will come a time when this lawsuit happens in NC? I think it’s only inevitable that it will happen. But in the immortal words of my favorite law school Professor Mark Morris, “It’s not whether or not you can sue, because you can always sue; it’s whether or not you will win.”
In North Carolina, the question would boil down to what the duty of Pop Warner was and did they fail in that duty. Do sports organizers have a duty to warn you that sports are dangerous for participants? Do they, or did they at the time, even understand the dangers of multiple head injuries? Did they fail to warn if they did know? I don’t think this is an easy win in North Carolina. And would contributory negligence be raised as a defense? Should the parents have recognized the dangers even if they weren’t warned? And would that even be contributory negligence, or would it be a cross claim against the parents?
This is a complicated and sad issue. People may not like attorneys in general, but everyone is glad they are around when they need them.