Who Is Liable for My Injury at a Sporting Event?

• June 22, 2023
• Premises Liability

If you’ve had an accident while attending a sports event, you might be considering filing a lawsuit – but against whom do you file it?

The answer to this question isn’t always straightforward; it depends on the nature of your accident and how it came about. Numerous parties may be named as defendants in some stadium accident cases. In this post, we go into more detail about the factors that may cause liability to attach in relation to stadium injury incidents.

How a Dallas Sporting Event Injury Lawyer Can Assist You

As Dallas sporting event accident attorneys, we help clients with debilitating injuries and mounting costs deal with these problems, but our functions aren’t limited to filing lawsuits and arguing in the courtroom. If you choose to work with us, we can help you with every aspect of your legal battle.

Comprehensive Case Evaluation

During your free initial consultation, your lawyer will determine the viability of your claim and the identities of potential defendants, and discuss the challenges that might arise during litigation.

Gathering Evidence

If you decide to pursue legal action, your lawyer will collect medical records, witness statements, surveillance footage, and any other relevant documentation that can serve as evidence of negligence and strengthen your claim.

Expert Consultations

In complex cases, expert testimonies can be crucial. Our firm has access to a network of professionals, including medical experts, accident reconstruction specialists, road safety consultants, occupational experts, and more, who can consult on your case and testify on your behalf.

Negotiating with Insurance Companies

Insurance companies use teams of high-powered lawyers to exploit any claim or policy detail that will allow them to minimize compensation. If you’re going to take on a billion-dollar insurer, you need a lawyer who’s got the necessary experience to fight the organization on your behalf.

Calculating Damages

Understanding the true extent of your damages goes beyond immediate medical bills. Your lawyer will consider future medical costs, lost wages, potential loss of future earnings, pain and suffering, and other relevant costs to ensure you seek appropriate compensation.

Litigation Support

If negotiations don’t result in a satisfactory settlement, your attorney will be prepared to take your case to court. There may be several court dates required to conclude the case, especially if it’s a high-value action.

Guiding Through Legal Procedures

When you’re pursuing legal action after a stadium accident, missing a deadline can jeopardize your case. Your attorney will assume responsibility for ensuring that every step is correctly followed and that no technical issues get in the way of your quest for justice.

Offering Emotional Support and Advocacy

As well as providing excellent legal representation, our sporting event injury lawyers will act as your support system throughout the claims process. They provide counsel, and reassurance, ensuring you’re not alone on this journey.

Who Is Liable for My Injury at a Dallas Sporting Event?

To establish liability in a personal injury case, whether it arises from a sporting event or in another way, you must show that another party’s negligence led to the injury you suffered. In the context of a sports game, there are a large number of ways in which this can happen.

Venue Owners/Operators

Venue owners and operators have a duty of care to maintain the safety of their premises. This includes ensuring that seating is safe, walkways are clear, and any potential hazards are addressed. If your injury was caused by structural failures or unsafe conditions within the venue, the venue’s management might be liable.

The Sporting Team or Organization

If the injury is a result of negligence by the sporting team or organization—for instance, inadequate safety protocols or failing to control aggressive behavior by its players or staff—they could be held responsible.

Event Organizers

For some events, third-party organizers may be involved in handling logistics, crowd management, security, and other functions. If they fail to properly discharge these duties, leading to unsafe conditions or circumstances that cause injuries, they may be liable.

It’s important to note that the identity of a liable party in these cases is not always immediately clear. The factors that cause accidents are complex, and it may be impossible to blame one entity for the entirety of a given incident. However, it’s possible to sue multiple defendants in sporting accident lawsuits.

Vendors

Stands selling food, drinks, or merchandise assume their own set of responsibilities. If you’re injured due to a vendor’s negligence (for example, if an improperly cooked hot dog gives you food poisoning), they could be responsible.

Other Attendees

In some cases, other attendees might be liable for your injuries. If someone intentionally harms you or acts recklessly (by, say, throwing objects), they might be held personally liable.

This is another situation in which dual liability may arise, as sports venues have a responsibility to ensure that troublesome attendees are removed if they pose a clear risk to others. If you can prove that another patron at the event you attended caused you harm, clearly posing a risk that event management staff could have addressed, the company may be liable to compensate you.

What If I’m Partially Responsible for My Accident?

Texas, unlike some other states, does not follow the strict “contributory negligence” doctrine. Instead, the Lone Star State uses a system called “modified comparative fault.”

This means you can recover compensation for an accident as long as the court determines you were not more than 50% at fault for it. So, if the blame for what happened was more than half yours, you won’t be entitled to a payday; otherwise, you may be. However, your award will be reduced in line with the proportion of your fault. So, if you were 20% responsible for what happened, the amount of your award will be capped at 80% of its overall value.

It’s important to note that you assume a certain level of risk when you attend a sporting event. Some injuries that arise during sports games are not compensable because the law views them as a reasonably foreseeable result of attending an event. For example, if you get hit by a baseball while in the stands at a game, you may not be entitled to receive compensation if the stadium took reasonable precautions to prevent such incidents from happening.

An important consideration here is whether you agreed to a liability release waiver when purchasing your ticket.

How Injuries Happen at Sports Events

At Crain Brogdon, we deal with clients who have suffered a wide range of injuries at sporting events. These can occur in various ways, including:

• Slips, trips, and falls. These may or may not give rise to liability on the part of the stadium owners, event organizers, or a third party, depending on the circumstances of the incident. For example, if you slipped on a patch of wet floor that wasn’t properly marked, that could amount to negligence.
• Crowd-related incidents, like mosh pits or stampedes, that result in trampling.
• Structural issues, like collapsing bleachers or seating.
• Vehicle collisions in parking lots and areas surrounding the venue.
• Inadequate security leading to dangerous crowd issues and unchecked antisocial behavior by patrons.

Contact a Dallas Stadium Injury Lawyer Today

When you attend a sporting event, the last thing you expect is for your day out to end in a serious injury. Sadly, accidents do happen at these events, and the medical, financial, and personal results can be catastrophic.

Don’t let someone else’s negligence upend your life. Contact us today to start the process of seeking compensation for what happened to you. You can reach us via our online webform or over the phone at (214) 522-9404. Remember, your initial consultation will be free, so there’s no risk for you in coming to tell us your story.

Attorney Quentin Brogdon

Quentin Brogdon has over thirty years of experience and expertise in the field of personal injury trial law. He is board certified in both personal injury trial law and civil trial advocacy. Quentin has received an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the highest possible rating. This rating reflects an attorney’s ethics and abilities according to reviews from fellow attorneys. [ Attorney Bio ]