With the threat of great pain comes an incentive to do the right thing.

"located on an unpadded wall directly behind the basket,"

I do not find a rule in the NFHS rule book that addresses padding behind the basket. Is there such a rule at any level?

Check Local/State/National building codes.

True, but when that threat gets too high, the incentive to even provide the service goes away.

Covered in general terms Rule 2-4-1.

Part 4.0.1 C Facility Conditions (Appendix for Game Management) (not Officials' responsibility)

You are writing of incentive to provide a disservice.

If ya wanna dance, ya gotta pay the fiddler.

yeah, sure. :)

Responsibility.
 

Anyone who is running an event at a gym with an unpadded wall directly behind a basket with a protruding electrical outlet is responsible for any injury to a player. The injury is absolutely foreseeable and the cost of preventing the injury is relatively small. The venue cannot hide behind National Federation Rules to claim that it does not have the responsiblity to make the facility safe.

We will never know how many injuries this lawsuit prevents -- because insurance companies may well decide after inspecting a gym that they're not writing insurance unless and until an obvious hazard such as that described in this suit has been fixed. There are lost future earnings, even for a kid, if an injury forecloses certain types of occupation -- but it isn't proved because Lawyer A says so, it's proved through expert testimony from expert witnesses, and insurance companies will spend many times what a plaintiff's attorney can spend on its own experts, to testify in their favour.

Blame Trial Lawyers all you want for whatever you want to blame them for. The fact is everything from toys to automobiles are safer because people responsible for instruments of harm are forced to answer for their negligence.