MD high court rules for soccer club, Baltimore County in concussion case

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A private youth soccer team, its associates and Baltimore County employees are not liable for alleged negligence when a 14-year-old player sustained a concussion during an indoor soccer practice, the Maryland Supreme Court affirmed Thursday.

In a 6-1 opinion with Justice Steven Gould writing for the majority, the Maryland Supreme Court upheld the state’s appellate court in finding Sydney Walton and her family produced no evidence that Walton’s concussion sustained at a Baltimore County-owned facility was caused by an alleged violation of a statute requiring participants in youth sports be provided with information about the risk of concussions.

The Walton family alleged Premier Soccer Club and several Baltimore County employees breached the standard of care owed to Walton by allowing her and the team to practice without first receiving information about concussions and head injuries, as required by a 2011 Maryland law.

The high court ruled that the Baltimore County Circuit Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Premier Soccer Club was legally correct because the Waltons neither put the concussion policies in the summary judgment record nor asked the circuit court to take judicial notice of the policies, meaning the circuit court “had no evidentiary basis to find a dispute of fact on the issue of proximate cause.”

Even if the Waltons had included the concussion policies in the summary judgment record, it would not have changed the outcome, Gould wrote, noting the Waltons’ argument “depends on numerous speculative assumptions” and “would require a jury to guess.”

“The statute’s purpose was to ensure that coaches, youth athletes, parents, and guardians possess awareness to reduce risk and appropriately handle concussions when they occur, not to eliminate the risk of concussions entirely,” Gould wrote for the high court’s majority. “Because the statute itself assumes that concussions may occur despite compliance, it would be illogical to permit a jury to speculate that compliance would have prevented Sydney’s specific injuries.”

Ray Shepard, counsel for the Waltons, said his clients are disappointed in the ruling and hope the Maryland legislature will take notice of the decision.

“We believe the legislature intended through the legislation to prevent concussions among youth athletes in the state, not just react to concussions after they occur,” Shepard said in an email Monday. “Perhaps the legislature will act to clarify the law and specifically create liability for coaches and youth sports programs who put kids at risk without properly educating themselves, the parents, and players about concussion prevention. What we have now is basically a toothless tiger type of law that doesn’t achieve one of its intended purpose s— prevention of injury to Maryland’s youth athletes.”

Timothy Dygert, Jr., counsel for Premier Soccer Club, said his clients are pleased with the high court’s ruling.

“We think it was important for the court to clarify what’s required for proximate cause under the statute or ordinance rule, and we think they did a nice job of that,” Dygert said in a phone call Monday.

Dygert said the ruling also is important for youth sports, including teams and coaches.

“If this case had gone the other way, then it could have exposed youth sports programs and youth sports coaches to unnecessary liability stemming from statutory requirements that are really no more than just handing out paperwork before the start of the season, when those statutes aren’t intended to prevent injuries that are inherent to the sport and when those requirements regarding paperwork aren’t causally connected to injuries sustained on the field of play,” Dygert said.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Shirley Watts wrote that the majority made a finding with respect to proximate cause that should have been made by the jury.

Watts said the Concussion Awareness Statute (HG § 14-501) is designed to protect coaches, youth athletes and the parents or guardians of youth athletes.

“In this case, the Waltons produced facts that would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the defendants’ disregard of their obligations under HG § 14-501 was a substantial contributing factor in producing Sydney’s injuries,” Watts wrote. “There was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to infer that had Sydney’s coach been provided the concussion policies, which he was required to review, it is more likely than not that he would have chosen to take any of a number of protective measures while the team played indoor soccer.”

Dygert said the broader impact of the majority’s ruling clarifies that there must be proximate cause in civil actions where a plaintiff is using the violation of a statute as evidence of negligence by the defendant.

“The injury still must have resulted because of the alleged violation of the statute,” Dygert said.