July 14, 2011
SportRisk: Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
CHAPTER 2: Negligence
1. Why is Negligence such a Big Deal?
- Our Litigious Society
- Impact of Increased Litigation on Sport/Recreation
2. Negligence
- Tort Law
- What is Negligence?
3. Establishing Liability for Negligence
- Establishing Negligence
- Duty of Care
- Standard of Care
- Actual Harm
- Proximate Cause
- Liability for Negligence
- Personal Liability
- Vicarious Liability
- Products and Premises/Occupiers Liability
- Defences against Negligence
- Contributory Negligence
- Voluntary Assumption of Risk
- Waivers
4. Negligence and the Courts
- The Legal Process
- What to do in the Event of a Lawsuit
CHAPTER 3: The 5 Key Risk Areas
1. Supervision & Instruction
- Qualifications & Certifications
- Supervision Ratios
- Lesson Plans & Progressions
- Job Descriptions
- Matching Participants
2. Training
- What Training is Required?
- Who Needs to be Trained?
- Training Grids
3. Facilities & Equipment
- New Facility Design Issues
- Inspections
- Maintenance
- Inspection and Maintenance Checklists
- Signage
- Facility and Equipment Modification
- Natural Hazards
4. Documentation
- Risk Management Manual
- Waivers
- Medical Screening
- Risk Information
5. Emergency Response Plan
- Emergency Planning Process
- Training
- Rehearsals/ Drills
- Equipment
- Communication
CHAPTER 4: Risk Management Planning
1. Risk Management: What’s it all about?
- What’s all the Fuss?
- Defining Risk Management
2. The Role of Insurance
- The Cornerstone of your Risk Management Plan
3. Keeping it Simple
- Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
4. Focus on High Risk Areas: The Risk Matrix
- Risk Matrix: Probability vs. Severity
5. Risk Management Planning
3 Step Process:
- Step 1: Prioritize High Risk vs. Low Risk
– The Risk Matrix
- Step 2: Conduct an Audit/ Risk Assessment
– The 5 Key Risk Areas
– The Key issues in each Risk Area
– The Key Audit Questions
- Step 3: Develop Action Plans
6. Organizing for Risk Management
- The Risk Management Committee
CHAPTER 5: Special Policy Areas
1. Transportation
- Four Key Areas (Vehicles; Drivers; Passengers; Emergency Response)
- Trip Administrator
- Trip Leader
2. Sport Clubs
- Reporting Structure
- Coaches
- Travel
- Emergency Care
- Other (Waivers; Medical Screening; Safety Officer; Alcohol/Drugs; Hazing;)
- Sport Clubs Manual
3. Summer Camps
- Staffing
- Supervision & Training
- Emergency Response
- Documentation
- Facilities & Equipment
- Other (Behavioural Issues; Medications; Transportation; Insurance)
- Summer Camps Manual
4. Disease Control
- Bloodborne pathogens
- Infectious Diseases
5. Alcohol & Drugs
- Policies
- Facility Rentals involving alcohol
6. Event Management
- Five Key Areas
- Event Management Checklist
7. Contracts
- Facility Rentals
- Personnel
In today’s litigious society, can you afford not to have this book?
To order, go to www.sportisk.com/resources
July 14, 2011
Katharine M. Nohr, Esq.
Nohr Sports Risk Management, LLC
Does your organization use motor vehicles to transport athletes, spectators or others? If so, it is essential for risk management planning to make sure that such vehicles are fully insured in compliance with applicable law. It is a good idea to talk with your insurance agent or broker about the insurance policies that have been purchased in order to ensure that there is sufficient coverage. Policy exclusions should be scrutinized to determine if there will be coverage for the uses of the motor vehicles in question. You will also want to make sure that policy limits are high enough to cover your organization in the case of a catastrophic accident.
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July 14, 2011
Katharine M. Nohr, Esq.
Nohr Sports Risk Management, LLC
On March 8, 2003, I was training for the cycling segment of a half Ironman triathlon. I had traveled to Maui with a sport club and we were biking from Kahului to Hana, a treacherous 56 mile ride in the rain. Fatigue, wet brakes and lack of experience navigating switch backs down steep mountain terrain caused my bike to lose control, hit a guard rail and launch me into the air down a 280 foot cliff. The force had caused my bike to break in half, landing high in a tree. My fall was miraculously broken by a ledge where I landed on my knee and wrist, suffering relatively minor injuries (only 3 fractured wrist bones) rather than the more likely outcome of death. The rescue was made by firefighters rappelling down the mountain, rather than an impossibly dangerous helicopter mission.
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July 14, 2011
Katharine M. Nohr, Esq.
Nohr Sports Risk Management, LLC
Three appellate courts have ruled in the last two months that participants in golf, soccer and football have assumed the risk of their involvement in New York and Indiana. On January 26, 2010, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division of New York issued a decision in Brown v. City of New York, __N.Y.S.2d__, 69 A.D.3d 893 (2010), concluding that a football player injured at a public field owned by the city had assumed the risk. The facts of the case were as follows: while playing touch football, Plaintiff dove for the football at the sideline of the public field. His knee struck a cement strip, which was approximately five feet outside of the sideline and ran alongside the field. The evidence established that the player had played there before and that he was aware of the cement strip, which was open and obvious. The defendant was able to establish that the Plaintiff assumed the risk of injury by voluntarily participating in the football game, even though he knew that by doing so, he could come into contact with the cement strip located in the out-of-bounds area of the field.
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July 14, 2011
Using Equipment Only for their Intended Use
Katharine M. Nohr, Esq.
Nohr Sports Risk Management, LLC
I’ll bet that on occasion employees of your organization have had to warn a child or adult not to use sports equipment for things other than their intended use. Perhaps you’ve seen someone using a baseball bat to dislodge a basketball from a net; a weight bench to stand on in order to reach something; small weights to prop a door open; or a tennis racquet to kill a bug. Most of the time, using equipment for something other than what it was designed for does not cause any harm. However, a recent court case provides a good reason that sports and recreation equipment should only be used for what they were designed for.
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July 14, 2011
Katharine M. Nohr, Esq.
Nohr Sports Risk Management, LLC
Does your organization have flood insurance? If so, are the policy limits high enough to repair your damaged facility and replace damaged equipment? It seems that every time I turn on the news there is a story about flooding somewhere in the world. Those stories combined with the fact that I live on a koi pond, blocks from the ocean and on an island where hurricanes and tsunamis are a constant threat, led me to e-mail my insurance agent inquiring about the possibility of my purchasing flood insurance (I already had hurricane insurance). The agent replied with a quote and I responded accepting his offer. We met at my residence and I showed him the koi pond and wrote a check for the amount of the premium on October 11, 2008. I followed up in an e-mail less than one week later, asking that the agent confirm that my flood insurance coverage was bound. He responded by e-mail, assuring me that he submitted the application and explained that the policy through FEMA would take 30 days to be in effect. This was cause for celebration. While my neighbors worried about the constant threat of the pond flooding (as it had done in 2003), I felt confident that even if it flooded, any losses would be paid under my shiny, new flood insurance policy.
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