And your honor, my other client is clearly seen committing a traveling violation in the video which was not called. Immediately after the reckless maneuver said client tore his ACL. We demand satisfaction.

To all this I say: Poppycock!

"I'm sorry coach, all those headbands are illegal. Your school color is plainly forest green, and those headbands are just as plainly kelly green."

I didn't say the plaintiff would win. But, even defending a lawsuit can be expensive. Like I said, I hope the NFHS and State Associations' insurance covers us. I'm pretty sure the NFHS Officials Association General Liability Insurance does, so that part was a little facetious.

Sports officials find their decisions, actions challenged in court
Limited Liability for Sports Officials
Officials Legal Liability

Indeed, these links mostly agree with you. Officials are generally not held responsible in court unless they are found to be acting in bad faith (fraud) or are grossly negligent. On the other hand, look how many actually made it to court and won, before being reversed on appeal.

Even if I'm not paying for it, being party to a lawsuit is a horrendous, miserable experience, and nobody will compensate me for that. I resent the NFHS for increasing the risk that I will be sued by making me responsible for medical decisions about players.

Every kid in our local kids rec league is covered by an insurance policy we pay for (costs are covered by registration fees) against injury plus all parents must sign a waiver of liability to protect the league and it's representatives including officials. This has been in effect for over 20 years and was instituted by a former Board member who is a personal injury attorney.

JRut - I was giving the offiical the benefit of the doubt in passing the state test. If said official had NOT passed the test and was officiating a sanctioned game as an official who was NOT certified....wow, that would be a home run for the plantiff.

JUST - The play you described would easily fit under an assumption of risk clause. Further it would have no bearing on the case as this was a case regarding a concussion not a torn ACL. Now if you wanted to show a pattern of negligence, you may be allowed to introduce evidence that shows a history of injuries during this officials game but that may or may not work. If you were to actually be allowed to use that defense, it would be very easy to get video of 1000s of "missed travel" calls that resulted in no injury whatsoever. The point being that iti is a reasonable to assume that 'missed travels' do not result in debilitating injuries. To push the point, show video of contact that caused concussions, preferably, one that looks a WHOLE LOT like the contact in the lawsuit. Finally, you are actually making the plantiff's case for them. IF you are arguing that this official should enforce the traveling rule, then it shold follow that the official should be required to enforce the rule on concussions.

MBYRON - Amen brother!

Judtech: Are you a lawyer? (Very serious question bTW)

This is why I think the NF has really errored on this issue. There really is no way we should be identifying specific injuries. All we should be doing is determining if a player is injured, not trying to determine what kind of injury and something like a head injury. ESPN's "E:60" last night did a story on a player that had multiple concussions in football games and was debilitated. I am not sure this is something we can identify from our position. I have no problem sending off a kid that is not able to play or appears to play, but not diagnose why they cannot play and then be partly responsible for if they come back in the game. As I said before football has cleaned up or clarified this on some level, but why even open this up to us. We do not know many of the situations a kid might identify such an injury. And if officials have been sued for calls in games and injunctions were held to allow the court to review whether someone advances in the playoffs, why would we not expect some lawyer to try to find some reason to sue an official over some language the NF decided to put into the situation? These are Doctor, coaches, schools and a parent issue, not an officiating issue.

Peace

Just a couple of things

-Insurance covers things but insurance can seek to recover their costs. (just ask the football officiating crew that was sued because a coach was run over by an official when the coach was on the field..

- Basketball has dangers and playing it will create some sort of assumption of the risk.

-The standard practice is many states is to have parents sign liability waivers for their kids. It really has limited effect (put parents on notice etc) However in some states parents can waiver THEIR ability to claim but parents cannot waive the rights of a minor to seek damages...( Parents cant sue if they waive but minor still can with a guardian ad litem)

-Most negligence cases are decided because the party did not exercise the care of a reasonable person (in our case a reasonable referee) Of course we know many unreasonable refs but that is a different story. All we have to do is exercise appropriate care. In the case of the concussion, although not obvious all the time you can tell why the player went down.... If it appears that there are the blackouts, dizziness etc we tell the coach we are invoking the concussion rule and if there is any error it will be made on the safety of the child. The player does not come in until released by a physician.

We also carry D&O insurance that protects our Board members if something happens while acting in their capacity as a Board member. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover our referees because they are all independent contractors. It won't cover me when acting as a referee even though I'm on the Board.

I can just see me in court now on a concussion case.

Judge: "So later in the game, when he stumbled off the bench, walked around in circles bumping into things and was babbling incoherently, you didn't think there was anything wrong?"

Me: "Are you referring to the player or the coach?"

I'm very late to this party. Sorry. I followed the link from a more recent thread. I just want to comment on one post:

I disagree with this. The ball can be at a player's disposal long before the official starts the count. When the ball clears the net after a goal, and a player from the throw-in team catches it, the ball is obviously at his disposal. He's holding it, so it's obviously available to him to begin the throw-in process. This is true even though the official usually doesn't start the throw-in count until the player is out of bounds.

Similarly, if the official puts the ball on the floor in the free throw circle next to the free throw shooter, the ball is available to the shooter. It's right there for her to pick up and try for goal. This is true even though the official probably won't start the count until she has moved into her normal Trail (or Center) position.

The point of the clarification is that the non-throw-in team can be granted a time-out request after a basket even if the throw-in team player is holding the ball (ball is available to him), because the ball doesn't become live until it is available AND the official starts the count.

There had been some very technical debates about whether we should grant a time-out request from the scoring team in late game situations when the ball falls through the basket and into the hands of a player from the throw-in team. Technically by the old rule, we should NOT grant the time-out in that situation, because the ball became live as soon as it was at that team's disposal. But most of us DID grant those requests anyway. So the clarification was made to bring the rules in line with practice.

I think you are confusing the "dictionary" definition of "at disposal of" and the "rules" definition.

By rule, a ball which falls through the basket into B1's hands is not at the disposal of B1 until either:
- B1 walks out of bounds and faces the court, thereby actually being able to make a throw-in pass.
- or team B delays enough that the official deems that the team should be in position to make the throw-in and starts the count then.

Just because the ball is or isn't in B1's hands, on the floor next to B1, or "available" are extraneous pieces of information, that do not in and of themselves matter when determining whether the ball is at the disposal of a player. That is, they play a part in the whole picture, but we need to know more about this situation, including where the player is standing and for how long.

With all due respect, I think you need to read 4-4-7. There is no rules definition of "available", but there is a definition of "at the disposal". All it says is that the ball is at the disposal of a player when it's available to a player after a goal. The new clarification says the ball becomes live when the ball is at the disposal AND the official has started counting. It's not enough anymore to be simply at the disposal in order for the ball to be live. That's the point.

Which rule is that, exactly?

I read through the pertinent rules / cases a bit more thoroughly and I'll agree that what I wrote was in error to the current rules.

Going through what happens during a throw-in, we have these things that have to happen:

A. Ball becomes live.
B. Ball is at disposal of thrower.
C. Throw-in begins.
D. Throw-in count begins.

6-1-2 (now) tells us that the ball is live (A) when the ball is at the disposal of the thrower (B) and the official starts his count (D).

4-4-7d: Ball is at the disposal of a player (B) following a made goal when it is available to him.

4-42-3: The throw-in (C) and the throw-in count (D) begin when the ball is at the disposal of the player entitled to it (B).


So I think that a problem lies that 4-42-3 tells us that B (disposal) causes D (count begins) and C (throw-in begins) to happen immediately. Now, 6-1-2 tells us that A (ball live) occurs when B (disposal) and D (count begins) happen, even though B (disposal) is supposed to have already caused D (count begins).


So Scrapper, if you aren't confused by the jumbled mess that I wrote above, I believe that what you said is that after a made basket, the ball is at the disposal of the thrower (i.e. available to him). But if the official does not start counting, then the ball is not live, per the change to 6-1-2. However the official not counting is directly in contradiction to 4-42-3.

1) If the official doesn't start the count as soon as the ball is placed on the floor, that official isn't following the rules...specifically NFHS rule 8-1-2--"The ball shall be placed at the disposal of the thrower or placed on the floor and the count shall begin."

2) As per SITUATION #9 in the 2006-07 rules interpretations issued by the FED.....
http://forum.officiating.com/basketb...s-archive.html
In that situation, the throwing team is holding the ball in-bounds.