About 30 million children and teens in the United States play some form of organized sport, and more than 3.5 million injuries a year cost those players time out of participation, according to Stanford Medicine Children's Health, which compiled the figures from the National SAFE KIDS Campaign and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Almost one third of all injuries suffered in childhood are sports injuries.
Those numbers set up the question this page answers: when a Florida high school athlete is hurt, who pays for it?
If your child or teen has suffered injuries from a school sport, seek the legal advice of a personal injury attorney to receive the answers you need and the service you deserve.
Liability for a school sports injury in Florida turns on three things: whether the injury came from a risk that is part of the sport, whether the school or the coach was negligent in a way that has nothing to do with playing the game, and how far sovereign immunity limits what can be recovered from a school board. The sections below take each in turn.
How Often Are Young Athletes Injured?
The figures below come from Stanford Medicine Children's Health, which compiled them from the National SAFE KIDS Campaign and the American Academy of Pediatrics:
- More than 3.5 million children ages 14 and younger are hurt each year playing sports or taking part in recreational activities.
- More than 775,000 children ages 14 and younger are treated in hospital emergency rooms for sports injuries each year.
- Sports and recreational activities account for about 21 percent of all traumatic brain injuries among American children.
- Most organized sports injuries, 62 percent of them, happen at practice rather than in a game.
- Death from a sports injury is rare, and when it does happen the leading cause is a brain injury.
Common Injuries Sustained from High School Sports
Younger children mostly collect scrapes and bruises. Injuries get more serious as athletes get older, because the players are bigger, they hit harder, and they are playing a faster version of the same sport.
At the high school level, common sports injuries include:
- Sprains and strains
- Muscle injury
- Ligament tear (ACL)
- Heart-related illnesses
- Bone injuries
- Exhaustion and fatigue
- Head trauma
- Heat-related illnesses
Noncontact sports such as swimming produce far fewer injuries per year than contact sports such as football. The emergency room estimates below are 2009 Consumer Product Safety Commission figures for children ages 5 to 14, as published by Stanford Medicine Children's Health:
- Nearly 215,000 children aged 5 to 14 were treated in hospital emergency rooms for football injuries.
- About 88,000 children aged 5 to 14 were treated in hospital emergency rooms for soccer injuries.
- Nearly 110,000 children aged 5 to 14 were treated in hospital emergency rooms for baseball and softball injuries. Baseball also has the highest fatality rate among youth sports, with three to four children dying from baseball injuries each year.
- More than 20,000 children aged 5 to 14 were treated in hospital emergency rooms for ice hockey injuries.
- More than 170,000 children aged 5 to 14 were treated in hospital emergency rooms for basketball injuries.
Who Is Liable for High School Sports Injuries?
Playing a contact sport carries risks that come with the game, and Florida law treats those differently from risks the school created. In Kuehner v. Green, 436 So. 2d 78 (Fla. 1983), the Florida Supreme Court held that express assumption of the risk is still a complete defense in contact sports, but only where the participant actually recognized the specific danger and chose to face it anyway. A player does not automatically assume every risk. Implied assumption of the risk is not a defense in Florida at all. Blackburn v. Dorta, 348 So. 2d 287 (Fla. 1977), abolished it and folded it into comparative negligence, so it reduces a recovery rather than ending the case.
In practice that means an injury from a clean tackle in a football game is unlikely to support a claim, because being tackled is the sport. An injury from a coach sending a concussed player back onto the field is a different question, because nothing about football requires that.
Public Schools vs. Private Schools
A Florida public school can be sued over a sports injury, but three things limit what a family recovers:
- Athletic teams are treated as an integral part of the school curriculum, so the ordinary risks of play are part of the activity the school is running.
- A district school board is a subdivision of the state for tort purposes. Florida Statute 768.28 waives its sovereign immunity only up to $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, and anything above that takes a claim bill from the Legislature. Florida Statute 768.28(6)(a) also requires written notice of the claim to the school board and to the Department of Financial Services within 3 years, or within 2 years in a wrongful death case, before suit can be filed.
- Parents usually sign a release, and a release is not automatically the end of a case. In Kirton v. Fields, 997 So. 2d 349 (Fla. 2008), the Florida Supreme Court held that a parent cannot waive a minor's claim in advance where the release covers a commercial activity. Florida Statute 744.301(3) now allows that waiver against a commercial activity provider, but only for risks inherent in the activity, only with the statutory warning language, and even then it gets a rebuttable presumption of validity rather than an automatic bar. For a noncommercial provider such as a public school, section 744.301(3)(d) leaves the question to common law.
On the other hand, liability for private schools often differs from public schools. Private schools often set their own policies regarding sports and other extracurricular activities. In the case of a sports injury at a private school, inquire with a trusted injury attorney to determine private school liability.
Liability in the Case of Negligence
A school or a coach can still be negligent, and negligence has nothing to do with the ordinary risks of the sport. To recover, a parent has to prove four things:
- The school or the coach owed the student a duty of care.
- That duty was breached.
- The breach caused the injury.
- The student suffered damages that can be measured, such as medical bills or lost future earning capacity.
Types of negligent actions that a coach may be liable for include:
- Failure to provide proper training.
- Allowing unfit, injured, or players with an unfair advantage to compete.
- Allowing unauthorized persons to engage in coaching responsibilities.
- Moving an injured athlete without proper care.
- Inadequate supervision.
Likewise, the school itself can be found negligent if it failed to provide sufficient emergency medical care, improperly trained its employees, provided teams with faulty or unsafe equipment, poorly maintained facilities, or had a lack of established school policies. If any of these circumstances left students in situations where they were injured during gameplay or practice, the school can become liable for these injuries.
Because schools have a duty to provide safe facilities and grounds to students, they should routinely inspect facilities where student sports are taking place. Failure to inspect school property, or correct any found issues, may be grounds for school liability.
A school cannot sign away every claim, and the form a parent signed at the start of the season does not settle the question by itself. If the injury came from something the sport does not require, there is a case worth looking at. Two deadlines matter. Under Florida Statute 95.11(5)(a), a negligence suit against a private defendant over an injury on or after March 24, 2023 must be filed within two years. A claim against a district school board needs the written notice under Florida Statute 768.28(6)(a) within three years first, and the suit itself has four years under Florida Statute 768.28(14), or two for wrongful death. If your student athlete was hurt, start a free case review.
