There’s nothing like a sporting event to bring people together. A love for your favorite team and hatred for the other side collide in a high octane event where people gather in a unified love of a sport as each touchdown or goal creates an elation that you can’t find anywhere else. These sporting events are held in stadiums that are as huge as people’s love for their team and every event requires a staff sizeable enough to create enough security in order to keep people safe. This is no easy feat considering the thousands—depending on the event—of people that staff needs to keep their eyes on.
Considering this, it is not always possible to maintain the safety of a massive amount of people and isolated instances do occur as a result of negligence. The majority of the personal injury cases that arise from attending sporting events come in the form of slip and fall cases or the more rare event of having gotten hit by a ball or puck. Below are details regarding how these cases work.
Stadium slip and falls: Anyone who’s been to a stadium knows that it’s impossible to keep a bathroom at a stadium 100% clean, 100% of the time. Things will happen in a public stadium restroom that will cause water to accumulate on the floor for whatever reason. And as an attorney, like a personal injury claims attorney from a law firm like John W. Shaw Law understands, staff cannot always be there for every drop of water that falls on the floor, much less clean up around dozens of people to remove the hazard in question. So, in order for the opposing party to be liable, the floor would need to be unreasonably slippery. An example would be if toilets were clogged and water kept filling and overflowing to a point that 3 inches of water accumulated and no one made an effort to clean it despite being aware of it. In that circumstance, the stadium would be liable.
Getting hit by a ball or puck: Every sports fan dreams of catching the match ball or puck by sheer chance. They get to keep it, treasure it, and show it to their kids years in the future as a testament to the sheer luck that occurred that day. But sometimes, people do not catch it with their hands but instead catch it by getting hit in the face or with their head instead. There’s an assumption of risk and disclaimer that comes with every ticket purchase and this nullifies nearly all personal injury claims, but it doesn’t defend against every claim. Most successful claims involve arguments that emphasize that protective netting or barriers weren’t kept up, or weren’t set up to sporting events standards.
When you are suffering from a personal injury accident after attending a sporting event, it is important to seek help from a lawyer you can trust. While there are many proactive measures in place so that a stadium cannot get sued, a lawyer can review your claim and determine whether you have the evidence you need to bring a claim forward. Reach out to a local law firm to learn more about your case today.