Can They Sue You? Can They Sue Each Other?
Assumption of Risk In Martial Arts Schools…

(The raw law on the “Assumption of Risk” has been a legal throwdown on many martial waivers. Is on mine. The standard is – “Assumption of risk is a legal doctrine that describes when someone chooses to participate in a risky activity and accepts the potential consequences. It’s a defense that can be used to reduce or bar a plaintiff’s ability to recover damages from a defendant. It’s a legal doctrine that describes when someone chooses to participate in a risky activity and accepts the potential consequences. It’s a defense that can be used to reduce or bar a plaintiff’s ability to recover damages from a defendant.” Of course, the legal system, ever prone to split hairs to the nth degree, shreds hairs into invisibility. -Hock)

Article by Attorney By Noah Nunberg
“Courts will apply the principle of “assumption of risk” in analyzing whether a persons involved in karate training are negligently liable in causing injury to others in supervising his students. This concept was well explained in the New York case of Beck v. Scimeca (Hwrang-Do Center), 90 N.Y.2d 471 (1997). The court explained that when a person engages in a sport or recreational activity, he consents to those commonly appreciated risks which are inherent in and arise out of the nature of the sport generally and flow from such participation.

For example, the court observed that one is legally deemed to accept responsibility to being hit by a ball in a baseball game or being bumped in a horse race. In each situation, the law will consider the degree of risks the plaintiff assumed when he elected to participate in the activity. The courts will not examine this in a vacuum. The assessment is made against the background of the skill and experience of the participant.

In Scimeca, a 30 year old orange belt student sued his instructor for compelling him to attempt a “jump roll” technique. There a 15 year old brown belt took over the class and directed the older orange belt, who had been training for 15 months, to jump over a high barrier. While the student had performed the technique before, the obstacle the student had to jump over was raised higher than he had previously attempted, and the student sustained severe spinal injuries in his failed attempt.

The court held that the student had assumed the risk of attempting such new techniques, which were calculated to advance his level of ability. The court examined whether the instructor created dangerous conditions which were over and above the usual dangers inherent in the martial arts class. The court also made clear that to assume the risk the participant must not only have knowledge of the injury causing activity, but also an appreciation of the risk involved. There, since the student had participated in this training technique before and he appreciated the inherent risks, there was no negligence.

The court distinguished other cases involving sparring activities, which appear to place a higher degree of responsibility upon the instructor. For example, in Deangelis v. Izzo, 192 A.D.2d 823 (3d Dep’t 1993), a beginning karate student sued the owner of the school as a result of sustaining a serious head injury while sparring with another beginner.

The court refused to dismiss the case based on assumption of risk there. The court noted that karate is not a commonly observed activity such as baseball or football and the dangers in karate are not at as apparent as they are with other common sports. Karate involves “specialized training” in order to make the punches, kicks and blocks effective. There, the new students had been trained in the punches and kicks, but not in blocking them.

Interestingly, the court observed correctly that placing beginners together to spar may be more dangerous than having the beginner spar with a more experienced opponent. The court found that since this fact in counterintuitive, it was not clear that the risks involved were “known, apparent or reasonably foreseeable . . . .” Therefore, the court refused to dismiss the action and held it for trial.”

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