By Gary Chester, Senior Writer
The story of Taliyah Brooks, a gifted Olympic athlete, is one of luck—both good and bad. It was Brooks’s good fortune to have the skills to compete as a world class heptathlon athlete. She won the event at the 2018 NCAA Division I championships, representing the University of Arkansas. She competed in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games (finishing 11th), and took the bronze medal at two world championship events in 2025.
Amidst those achievements, Brooks experienced some challenging times. In 2021, while competing for a heptathlon spot in the delayed 2020 Olympics, Brooks suffered heat related injuries during U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon. The injuries prevented her from qualifying. Brooks channeled her disappointment into a lawsuit, Brooks v. USA Track & Field, Inc., Case No. 25S-PL-103 (Indiana Supreme Ct. December 17, 2025).
As part of her online application to the governing body, U.S. Track & Field (“USATF”), Brooks signed an agreement containing waiver and indemnity provisions in which she acknowledged the risks of competition and agreed to “expressly assume all such Risks and responsibility for any damages, liabilities, losses or expenses which I incur as a result of my participation…” The only exception to the provision was for acts of gross negligence and/or willful misconduct of USATF and others involved in the Olympic trials.
Brooks Was Halfway Home When Fate Struck
The heptathlon trials were conducted over two days. After day one, Brooks was in second place and well on her way to securing a spot on the Olympic team. On the second day, temperatures on the track exceeded 140 degrees. The trials continued as scheduled, but Brooks passed out on the track and was unable to continue. She failed to qualify for the American team. She would attempt to challenge the wisdom—and the conduct—of USATF.
Brooks sought a declaratory judgment action in Marion Superior Court in Indiana seeking a ruling that the agreement with USATF was unenforceable. The complaint did not set forth any tort claims, as Brooks’s attorneys wanted a ruling on the legality of the agreement before pursuing her claims for injury (for reasons discussed below). Brooks moved for partial summary judgment on the issue of whether the agreement was an unenforceable contract of adhesion under Oregon law, and she also moved to amend her complaint to include tort claims. Her applications were denied. USATF filed a cross-motion for summary judgment which the trial court granted. Brooks filed an appeal.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling that the agreement was enforceable but found the trial court had abused its discretion in denying Brooks the opportunity to amend her complaint under Trial Rule 15(A). Brooks’s case was still alive, for the moment.
On transfer to Indiana’s highest court, Justice Mark S. Massa and three other judges held that the Court of Appeals had erred in the second part of its ruling. They stated that Trial Rule 15(A), which grants a trial court discretion on motions to amend the pleadings, does not apply after final judgment. Since the trial court had entered final judgment in favor of USATF, the case had been decided and Brooks could not amend her pleadings. Justice Christopher M. Goff dissented.
The Indiana Supreme Court Rejects a Workaround
The majority found that Brooks had filed her motion to amend the complaint when it was too late. The case had already been decided. The court reasoned that Brooks could have filed a motion to amend the declaratory judgment complaint to add her tort claims against USATF at any time prior to the trial court’s entry of final judgment. Brooks also could have filed a separate complaint sounding in tort before the declaratory complaint was decided. The opinion acknowledged that the result was harsh, but inevitable. The “finality of judgments” principle was a bright line rule leaving no discretion to the courts.
“Either way,” the majority ruled, “the indemnity and the waiver provisions expressly excluded gross negligence and willful misconduct. This path was available irrespective of how the trial court ruled on the enforceability of the Agreement.”
Brooks had lost the opportunity to prove that USATF and other defendants were grossly negligent by holding the Olympic Trials in conditions that were arguably dangerous to Brooks and the other athletes who participated. The majority recognized that the result deprived Brooks of a legitimate claim, while also sending an unmistakeable message that Brooks’s lawyers were responsible. “No doubt,” the opinion stated, “this case involved serious strategic and practical concerns that may have driven counsel’s decisions. But the final judgment rule is clear and cannot be affected by a litigant’s strategic choices.”
But did the language of the agreement favor USATF so as to box Brooks into a corner, unfairly limiting her litigation strategy? One justice thought as much.
Dissent: The Agreement Violated Public Policy
Justice Goff opined that the trial court improperly entered final judgment against Brooks. (Had it not done so, the final judgment rule would not have come into play and Brooks could have filed an amended complaint.) In April 2023, Brooks moved for partial summary judgment and asked for a ruling ten days before the statute of limitations expired so she could amend her complaint to include tort claims. This was to avoid potentially “insurmountable” litigation costs that Brooks would be subject to by the agreement’s indemnification clause. She would only pursue those claims if the court declared the agreement unenforceable.
Had the trial judge denied USATF’s motion for summary judgment, Brooks could have filed her amended complaint two days before the statute of limitations had expired. Goff rejected Brooks’s argument that the agreement was an impermissible contract of adhesion, but he contended that it violated public policy.
Goff applied five relevant factors used to determine whether an agreement is contrary to public policy. He emphasized two factors: the breadth and effect of the agreement and the inequality of bargaining power between the parties.
The release of liability provision applied to numerous entities apart from the USATF. Goff stated that the limitations could “prevent Brooks from suing medical providers for malpractice… law-enforcement agencies, volunteers, or ‘other public entities’ supporting the event for something like sexual assault… or some ‘other undefined… unknown risks and dangers.’” Since the agreement was overbroad, Goff reasoned, it was unenforceable.
Moreover, Goff noted that the agreement was drafted in a manner to discourage the athletes from bringing legitimate claims for gross negligence and/or willful conduct. It required athletes to pay for expenses “of any kind or nature,” including legal fees, unless the athlete prevails in the lawsuit. Goff stated that potential payment of fees discourages athletes from suing USATF “for any misconduct, no matter how egregious.” He emphasized there was no reciprocal obligation for USATF to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees if the plaintiff won.
The Wide Effect of the Agreement
Justice Goff raised a broader concern that the majority failed to address, noting that in 2021, 93,354 USATF members signed the same agreement. Brooks’s case was not isolated; it implicated a matter of public interest because the court was construing an exculpatory clause that could impact thousands of athletes. Judicial enforcement of the clause, according to Goff, “stands at odds with the ‘strong public policy’ that ‘favors[s] the encouragement of participation in athletic activities.’”
He added that Brooks and the other athletes who had signed the agreement had no bargaining power. They had to accept the one-sided terms of the indemnification and release provisions if they wanted to compete in the Olympic trials. “For these reasons,” Goff wrote, “I would declare the Agreement void as against public policy.”
Takeaway: Why Did the Court Silence Brooks?
One takeaway from the decision is that one justice was result-oriented and four justices were rules-oriented. The majority’s reasoning was unconvincing because it inaccurately stated that Brooks had a choice to file a tort claim, but as Justice Goff explained, it was not a fair choice. The terms of the agreement put any plaintiff at financial risk if the defendants prevailed. The majority ignored this issue.
In Indiana and other jurisdictions, exculpatory clauses in contracts are generally valid. However, courts have voided exculpatory privisions where there is unequal bargaining power and where they contravene a recognized public policy. In a seminal Indiana decision, Ransburg v. Richards, 770 N.E.2d, 393, 396 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002), the court struck down an exculpatory clause in a residential lease because the parties had unequal bargaining power and because it contravened common law tort liability by eliminating a landlord’s duty of reasonable care.
In Brooks, the majority overlooked a clear parallel: the parties had unequal bargaining power, and the exculpatory clause contravened the public policy of encouraging participation in athletics. As to public policy, Justice Goff recognized that when the Indiana Supreme Court considered the parameters of assumption of risk in Pfenning v. Lineman, 947 N.Ed.2d 392, 403 (Ind. 2011), the justices recognized that “strong public policy considerations favor the encouragement of participation in athletic activities.”
Finally, it is telling that the Brooks majority declined to follow the reasoning of the Indiana Court of Appeals in Ransburg: “[I]s there any principle which is more familiar or more firmly embedded in the history of Anglo-American law than the basic doctrine that the courts will not permit themselves to be used as instruments of inequity and injustice? Does any principle in our law have more universal application than the doctrine that courts will not enforce transactions in which the relative positions of the parties are such that one has unconscionably taken advantage of the necessities of the other?”
