Lawlink – I was injured while playing sports, how can I make a claim?

Q. I played with a fairly niche sporting club for a number of years. I sustained a serious injury during training about 18 months ago and have been in pain for some time. I eventually even had to have surgery. I have decent health insurance and was able to return to work pretty quickly. But the club did very little to help, offered no financial assistance. The club was run quite poorly, even for an amateur club. Can I do anything at this stage? Dear Reader, While you didn’t mention precisely what sport you were engaged in, it’s fair to say that certain sports inevitably involve a degree of physical risk. Athletes are generally taken to accept the ordinary risks inherent in the sport. For example, the courts confirmed the navigator of a rally car could not hold the driver or the course organiser liable for injuries from a crash, provided the driver drove as carefully as he reasonably could and that reasonable precautions were taken by the organisers. For contact sports, generally speaking, tackles, collisions, and accidental injuries are often regarded as inherent aspects of the sport, and persons injured in such a manner would not have a viable claim. That said, liability may attach if the act of another party goes beyond what might be expected. For example, a punch thrown by a player in a contact sport is clearly outside the scope of a sport and might open the other player up to a claim. A sports club may also owe participants a duty to take reasonable care for their safety. This is not an absolute guarantee that no injury will be caused. Generally, coaches/trainers will have to be suitably qualified, maintain appropriate safety procedures, providing adequate equipment and facilities and respond to known risks. To succeed in a negligence claim, you would generally need to establish four elements: that the defendant owed you a duty of care; that the duty was breached; that the breach caused your injury; and that you suffered a recognised loss as a result. Whether you have a viable claim will therefore depend on the precise nature of your injury, how it occurred, and the actions of the club/other players as appropriate. You should also note that it would be very common that when you signed up with the club that you would have signed a waiver of liability or similar. This is not necessarily a bar to you taking a claim. You should also note that there is a strict time limit of two years from the date of your injury within which you can bring your claim. The post Lawlink – I was injured while playing sports, how can I make a claim? appeared first on Limerick Post.