Thought Leadership

Key Points:

• High school coach’s alleged acts and omissions governed by simple negligence standard rather than the heightened standard of recklessness usually applied in recreational sports settings.
• New Jersey Supreme Court reasoned that alleged tortious conduct by coach pertained only to her decision-making as a coach, not to coach’s active involvement in the sport.

In 2015, plaintiff Morgan Dennehy was a high-school senior and a member of her school’s field hockey team. Before a practice was scheduled to start, Morgan’s coach, defendant Dezarae Fillmyer, instructed the team to begin warming up in an area where the high school’s boy soccer team was also practicing. As plaintiff was lining up to take a practice shot, an errant soccer ball struck the base of her skull, causing injuries which gave rise to a lawsuit.

The New Jersey Supreme Court recently held in Dennehy v. East Windsor Regional Board of Edu., 2022 WL 14668556 (N.J. 2022), that the high school coach’s alleged acts and omissions were governed by a simple negligence standard rather than the heightened standard of recklessness that is usually applied in other recreational sports settings. Usually in the context of recreational sports, a plaintiff must prove that a defendant acted with recklessness (a higher standard of care) to be held liable for a plaintiff’s injuries. See generally Crawn v. Campo, 643 A.2d 600(N.J. 1994); and Schick v. Ferolito, 767 A.2d 962 (N.J. 2001). The Supreme Court in Dennehy limited its application of Crawn and Schick because Dennehy alleged tortious conduct by the coach pertained only to her decision-making as a coach, not to the coach’s active involvement in the sport.

The plaintiff asserted that she sustained injuries through the defendant’s alleged failure to supervise, prevent potential and foreseeable dangerous conditions, and post suitable warnings. The defendant argued that the plaintiff was required to show that the defendants’ acts or omissions rose at least to the degree of recklessness (instead of simple negligence), as described in Crawn and Schick. Furthermore, the defendants argued Crawn’s recklessness standard should be extended to apply to the acts and omissions of instructors and coaches, like herself, regardless of the circumstances.

In rejecting the defendants’ arguments, the Supreme Court reasoned that case law instructing courts to apply a heightened standard of care only applied in cases where the coach or instructor actively participated in the sporting activity when the injury occurred. For example, the higher standard of care was applied when a karate instructor injured a student by kicking them during a sparring match. Unlike that situation, Coach Fillmyer was not wielding a field hockey stick or otherwise actively engaged in the preliminary practice with her players when the plaintiff’s injury occurred. In other words, Coach Fillmyer was not “participating” in the sport within the meaning of Crawn and Schick. As the Supreme Court put it, “The essence of plaintiff’s theory of liability—that Fillmyer chose the wrong place and an unpropitious time to commence practice—is no different than the decisions that might be made by a biology teacher taking a class out to study marine life at the beach. In these and other similar settings, parents have the right to expect that teachers and coaches will exercise reasonable care when in charge of their children and courts will not immunize a teacher’s negligence by imposing a higher standard of care.”

There are multiple key takeaways from this case that insurers should be aware of. First, Crawn and Schick remain good law. In other words, a heightened standard of care still applies to instructors and coaches who may injure a player or student while participating in the sport. Second, coaches and instructors who oversee an activity need to be more cautious in their decision making. They need to make sure that their priority is the safety of students.

Furthermore, the court did not address the potential defenses the defendants might have under the Torts Claim Act and whether a written waiver would protect coaches and instructors from liability. In fact, if a waiver had been in place, the case could have been decided differently. As such, it would be a good idea for coaches and instructors to make their students fill out waivers before beginning practice. Only time will tell how future courts interpret this decision and apply it to other settings.