A former high school cheerleader and her parents have sued a school district and others, claiming the individual defendants failed to follow protocol and contact proper medical personnel after the cheerleader suffered a concussion during practice.
Plaintiff Amanda Schoerke was in 11th grade and a member of the varsity cheerleading team at New Trier Township High School when the accident happened. Schoerke was performing a flying stunt known as a “full down” at practice on Sept. 24, 2012 when she landed on her head.
Her complaint noted that once she “arrived at the athletic trainer’s office, (she told the trainer) that she had fallen on her head during a flying stunt, that her head hurt, that she was having difficulties walking, that she had fallen into the trash can on her walk to the office, and that she was experiencing problems with her vision.”
The athletic trainer allegedly told Schoerke’s mother that her daughter was “fine” and didn’t need medical attention. That night, Schoerke allegedly suffered concussion-like symptoms, such as “severe amnesia,” prompting her mother to take her to the emergency room the next day.
In her lawsuit, the plaintiff claimed the defendants — New Trier Township High School District 203, the Board of Education for District 203 and three members of the athletic department — were negligent because they allowed her to attempt the stunt and then because they failed to provide her proper medical attention after the concussion.
Some cheer experts have already weighed in on the case, wondering aloud whether the plaintiff plans to claim the stunt was “inherently risky,” or whether the coach didn’t ensure that then team was ready to execute the stunt.
Was the Coach Negligent, or did the Plaintiff Assume the Risk?
“With cheerleading and any other acrobatic-type sport (gymnastics, ski-jumping), there is a gradual progression in skills: you learn a skill, master it, and then attempt the next level for that skill,” according to the blog SIS BOOM RAH (http://sisboomrah.com/). “Having an athlete execute an advanced skill before he or she can properly execute the basic skill is poor coaching (although this brings up the issue of whether poor coaching is negligence due to the fact that a coach has discretion in assessing the athlete’s execution).
“On the other hand, if it was because full downs are inherently risky, then I’d have to disagree. Athletes know what they are getting into when they join cheerleading; there are skills and there are sometimes scary skills, and, given the creative part of cheerleading, there are skills that nobody has ever tried before. People fall, people get injured, it is all a part of the risk of cheerleading. It’s a shame that some high school athletic organizations have made double downs illegal, and it would be a shame to limit those skills even further.”
Paul D. Anderson, a concussion litigation expert and attorney at the Klamann Law Firm in Missouri, wrote an article for CLR a few years back where he looked at how “concussions are becoming an increasingly dangerous problem” in cheer. Anderson zeroed in on the assumption of risk doctrine.
“Cheerleading lawsuits, historically, like many other sports-related lawsuits have failed under the doctrine of primary assumption of the risk. Under this doctrine, a participant assumes inherent risks involved in the activity, and a defendant owes a duty not to increase these risks, but it owes no duty to decrease the risks. In the seminal case of Aaris v. Las Virgenes Unified School Dist. … the court affirmed this doctrine and granted summary judgment in favor of the School District, stating in dicta, if we were to ‘hold that respondent has liability for appellant’s injury, it would fundamentally alter the nature of high school cheerleading, perhaps heralding the return of that docile row of cheerleaders…this would either chill, or perhaps even kill, high school cheerleading.’
“The court also stated that the law of physics creates an obvious risk inherent in cheerleading. ‘What goes up, must come down…Whenever gravity is at play with the human body, the risk of injury is inherent.’
“Although this case’s reasoning provides persuasive authority, which many other courts have followed, each case must be decided on its individual facts.”
