By Gina McKlveen
A United States District Court Magistrate Judge recently ruled on Baylor University’s motion to dismiss for claims of ordinary negligence, negligent hiring, negligent monitoring and oversight claims, negligent retention, and gross negligence, denying the motion as to all claims alleged against the Texas-based educational institution, except the negligent hiring claim.
Earlier this year, Eva Mitchell, a standout women’s soccer player for Baylor University, filed a lawsuit against her alma mater and her former head coach, Paul Jobson, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The basis of Mitchell’s negligence claims were a series of repeated header drills using overinflated soccer balls that caused her severe and continuous neurological damage after suffering multiple concussions. After submitting her claims to the court, Baylor filed a motion to dismiss the case for failure to state a claim. On June 27 of this year, the presiding judge in Mitchell v. Baylor issued an opinion on Baylor’s motion denying it in part and granting it in part without prejudice.
At first, Baylor attempted to argue that Mitchell’s signature of the university’s Assumption of the Risks, Release and Waiver of Liability, and Indemnity and Hold Harmless Agreements prevented Mitchell from bringing her negligence claims at all. However, the court found that it would be inappropriate to consider those agreements at the current stage of the proceedings because Mitchell neither referenced nor relied upon them in her original complaint. Baylor also attempted to convert its motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment, which the court also denied. Resultingly, the court moved forward with analyzing the factual plausibility of each of Mitchell’s negligence claims under the applicable legal standard for motions to dismiss.
Beginning with outlining the three approaches applied by the Texas Supreme Court in sports-related injury cases, namely (1) the reckless or intentional standard, (2) the traditional negligence standard, or (3) the inherent risk standard, this court made clear that lacking an official adoption of any one of these approaches by the Texas Supreme Court the specific standard to be applied is very much an open question of law to be decided. Under the reckless or intentional standard, a plaintiff must prove that a defendant’s conduct is either reckless (i.e. the person knows the risk of harm created by the conduct or knows facts that make the risk obvious and taking a precaution that would eliminate or reduce the risk is a slight burden compared to the magnitude of the risk) or intentionally injurious. For traditional negligence, a defendant owes a plaintiff an ordinary duty of care. Lastly, the inherent risk standard imposes no negligence duty on a defendant to a plaintiff if the risk that resulted in the plaintiff’s injury is inherent in the nature of the particular sport at issue, but a defendant will owe an ordinary negligence duty to a plaintiff if the risk that resulted in the plaintiff’s injury is not inherent in the nature of the sport at issue.
Here, the court found that Mitchell met the factual plausibility of her claims under all three standards.
The court preceded to address Mitchell’s negligence claims, highlighting the significant facts of her own circumstances as a member of Baylor’s Big 12 collegiate Women’s Soccer Team to make its rationale. Specifically, Mitchell’s ordinary negligence claim against Baylor alleged both direct and vicarious liability since the university had a duty of care to provide her with a safe environment as a student-athlete and that duty was breached when Coach Jobson, while acting in the scope of his employment, launched overinflated soccer balls during dangerous and repeated header drills that caused her injuries. Despite Baylor’s reliance on the various student-athlete signed waivers and agreements, the court found Mitchell alleged sufficient facts to support her ordinary negligence claim. Therefore, the court denied Baylor’s motion to dismiss on this claim.
Next, Mitchell alleged negligent hiring of Coach Jobson against Baylor University, but ultimately conceded that she did not plead sufficient facts to support this claim. Thus, the court granted Baylor’s motion to dismiss solely on this claim. Nevertheless, Mitchell was able to meet the legal requirements and factual assertions to impose a duty upon Baylor for negligent monitoring and oversight, which the court reasoned could have been prevented without hindering the success of the Women’s Soccer Team especially considering Baylor University was the only women’s soccer team in the nation using these repeated, overinflated soccer ball header drills. The court, once again, denied Baylor’s motion to dismiss on this claim.
On Mitchell’s final two claims the court also denied Baylor’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim after finding that she had pleaded sufficient facts to impose a duty on the university for its actions or inactions that ultimately led to her brain injuries. For her negligent retention claim, Mitchell alleged Baylor knew or should have known of Jobson’s fitness for the coaching position with the Women’s Soccer Team and that they knew or should have known its employee’s actions increased the likelihood of risk of harm to Mitchell especially given that the athletic trainers and coaches were made aware of her concussion diagnosis. Finally, Mitchell’s gross negligence allegation, according to the court, satisfied the objective standard involving an extreme degree of risk with a high probably and magnitude of potential harm which is actually known or subjective aware of in order to survive Baylor’s motion to dismiss.
Now that Baylor’s pretrial motions have been effectively decided by the judge and issued by the court, predominately in Mitchell’s favor, the case continues with four of Mitchell’s five negligence claims still fair game for whatever lies ahead.
