By John Wendt
On February 19, 2023, at 3:51 of the second period of the Adrian College – Michigan State American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) hockey game, Sydney Crawford of MSU was assessed a major penalty and given a game misconduct for Checking from Behind.[1] The player who she hit, Kathleen Droba of Adrian lay unconscious on the ice. Now, Droba is suing Crawford claiming that she has two fractures in her spine, and has persistent headaches, suffers nausea, vertigo, loss of balance, memory loss, decreased quality of life and potential loss of income.[2]
Both Adrian College and Michigan State University offer teams that participate in the ACHA. The ACHA, founded in 1991 and with over 450 members, is the national association for Non-NCAA Collegiate Hockey. The ACHA offers a non-varsity option for college students who want to play hockey at the collegiate level.[3] Despite not being in the NCAA, the ACHA uses the rules of play laid out in the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules & Interpretations Rule Book.[4]
According to the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Book, body checking is not permitted in any area of the ice in Women’s Ice Hockey. The penalty is a minor, major and game misconduct or major and disqualification, at the discretion of the referee.[5] The NCAA felt that the issue of body checking was so important that they included it as one of their Points of Emphasis on the 2023-24 Rule Book and prepared a special video for coaches and officials to assist with this emphasis.[6]
Droba’s Complaint alleges that she was positioned near the Michigan State net when Defendant Crawford began skating toward her. The Complaint continues to allege that the defendant “without warning, recklessly and/or carelessly and violently struck Plaintiff with the force of her entire body (commonly referred to as a “bodycheck”), causing Plaintiff to strike the surface of the ice with great force and lose consciousness.” Importantly, the Complaint alleges that, “[t]he bodycheck by Defendant was not attributable to participation in the ongoing athletic contest, as there was no play on the puck, and such action is clearly and expressly outside the rules of play.” Hence, the bodycheck was above and beyond any incidental action to hockey.
The Complaint also alleges that Crawford was negligent. Crawford, as a co-participant in the game, owed the Plaintiff a duty to “conform to the normal bounds of the activity and refrain from misconduct.” Defendant Crawford breached that duty by “failing to conform her conduct to the normal bounds of the sport of women’s ice hockey and forcefully bodychecking Plaintiff causing injuries….”
Crawford’s answer acknowledges that there was contact between her and Droba, which caused Plaintiff to fall to the ice. However, according to Crawford the allegations against her were inaccurate, and that “she (Crawford), along with other teammates, were skating toward their own net because that is where the puck/play was. Where exactly Plaintiff was as Defendant was doing so, she does not know because she was not focusing her attention on where the Plaintiff was.” Crawford argued that she did not act beyond the normal bounds of conduct associated with women’s ice hockey.[7]
Crawford’s Answer also noted that the phrase “reckless misconduct” has been defined by Michigan appellate law. The framework for co-participant liability in Michigan was established in Ritchie-Gamester v. City of Berkley, 461 Mich 73, 597 NW2d 517 (1999), subsequently developed in Bertin v. Mann, 502 Mich. 603, 918 N.W.2d 707 (2018), and recently discussed in Payne v. Payne, 338 Mich.App. 265, 979 N.W.2d 706 (2021).
As noted in Payne, “[u]nder the common law of tort, many interpersonal interactions are governed by the ordinary-negligence standard of care. If the common law provides that a person owes a duty to another person, then that duty is usually to exercise ordinary care commensurate with the particular circumstances of the situation… But in 1999, our [Michigan] Supreme Court pivoted away from the ordinary-negligence standard in a narrow category of cases—those cases involving coparticipants who are engaged in a sport or recreational activity.”[8]
The Court in Payne went on to note, “In Ritchie-Gamester, an ice skater collided with another skater. The plaintiff asked the Court to apply the standard of ordinary negligence to her common-law claim, while the defendant argued that a reckless-misconduct standard should apply… With this background in mind, the Court took as a basic premise that ‘[w]hen people engage in a recreational activity, they have voluntarily subjected themselves to certain risks inherent in that activity. When one of those risks results in injury, the participant has no ground for complaint.’ …In light of this understanding, the Court joined the majority of other jurisdictions in adopting ‘reckless misconduct as the minimum standard of care for coparticipants in recreational activities.’”[9] Finally, the Court in Payne noted that, “The adoption of the reckless-misconduct standard did not mean, however, that ordinary negligence had no place in recreational activities. The Supreme Court made clear that the reckless-misconduct standard applied only to risks that were inherent in the recreational activity, not those risks that exceeded “the normal bounds” of the activity.”[10]
Droba is seeking an amount in excess of $25,000 and any additional costs and interest that the court may deem appropriate. Neither Michigan State University nor the MSU Team were named as defendants.
[1] Michigan State University, Game vs Adrian College on 02-19-2023 – Michigan State University Women’s Ice Hockey, (2023), https://www.msuwomensicehockey.com/games/game-vs-adrian-college-on-02192023-li1yhdpm/stats (last visited Dec 17, 2024).
[2] John Agar, College Hockey Player Sues MSU Rival after Violent Hit Left Her Unconscious on the Ice, mlive (2024), https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2024/12/college-hockey-player-sues-msu-rival-after-violent-hit-left-her-unconscious-on-the-ice.html (last visited Dec 17, 2024). The case is entitled Droba v. Crawford, Case 1:24-cv-01277-RJJ-SJB, ECF No. 3, PageID.19, Filed 12/10/24 (W.D. Mich). The lawsuit was initially filed in Ingham County Circuit Court then moved to federal court at the defense’s request.
[3] American Collegiate Hockey Association, Who We Are, (2024), https://www.achahockey.org/who-we-are (last visited Jan 4, 2025).
[4] American Collegiate Hockey Association, American Collegiate Hockey Association Manual (Revised July 2022), (2022), https://www.achahockey.org/ (last visited Jan 2, 2025).
[5] National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2022-23 and 2023-24 Ice Hockey Rules Book, (2022), NCAA.org (last visited Jan 2, 2025). Section 11 Women’s Ice Hockey P.86.
[6] Id. 2023-24 Points of Emphasis P.7.
[7] Agar, supra note 2.
[8] Payne v. Payne, 979 N.W.2d 706 (2021) at 712.
[9] Id. at 713.
[10] Id. For an excellent discussion of the duty of care to co-participants and the “contact sports exception” please see, Richard E. Kaye, J.D., Annotation, Construction and Application of Contact Sports Exception to Negligence, 75 A.L.R.6th 109 (Originally published in 2012).
