Legal Liability in Covering Athletic Events

A thletic trainers, team physicians, physical therapists, coaches, and schools all face potential liability by pro-viding medical coverage at athletic events. This article will focus on potential liability that may arise from high school athletic injuries.30 Common principles can be found among the laws of each state, but material differences exist in the deci-sions of the higher courts of each state and from state statutes. This article is not intended to serve as a state-by-state compari-son of applicable laws, but rather to explain the legal principles involved, and offer some “real life ” examples of how courts in various jurisdictions around the country have applied these principles with a goal of bringing about awareness and further discussion. Everyone owes a duty of reasonable care to others in the course of their daily lives. A tort is committed when we fail to act as an ordinary and reasonably prudent person under simi-lar circumstances and cause injury to another person. An indi