No Floodgates of Injury Charges

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Yesterday, a sports lawyer said that a guilty verdict over Manny Castillo’s death won’t open the floodgates towards other sport injury charges. For athletes, however, it highlights the need to define “line of consent.”

Steven Indig, a Centre for Sport and Law (Vaughan-based) lawyer said, “When we pass line of consent, we need to respond to our actions – hopefully, this message gets across. Obviously, it’s very important to define that line, especially from a legal context point of view. When we play sport, we assume certain risks.”

He said further, “So what are those risks and where’s that line? When we play football, we may consent to being tackled, but never clothes-lined. At the same token, when we play hockey, we may consent with being checked, but never with the stick. So I think these lines are muddy.”

Meanwhile, Doug Crosse, Rugby Canada spokesman, said “This does not really represent what rugby is all about. Therefore, it’s just an isolated incident. Lots of kids play rugby in their teens for the first time and they don’t have a lifetime of exposure to this sport as what they do with baseball, basketball, or hockey – this is part of the problem.”

In addition, Todd Russell, Toronto Rugby president, said “No sport will intentionally field players with the intention of making them suffer injuries.”

Tags: Centre for Sport and Law, Doug Crosse, line of consent, rugby, Sports Injury, sports lawyer, Steven Indig, Todd Russell
Posted in Injury, Sports Injury | No Comments »