Beware The Hidden Risk: Event Organiser And Venue Owner Liability

Recent tragic events in motorsport, with the deaths of Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli in IndyCar and MotoGP respectively, have brought into focus the role event organisers and venue owners play in ensuring the safety of those participating in sporting events and where liability rests when accidents do occur.

Liability - venue owners

The duty of care owed by an occupier to his visitors requires that such care is displayed to ensure that the visitor will be reasonably safe in using the premises for the purposes for which he or she is there.

In the sporting context, the duty of an 'occupier' or venue owner was recently examined by the Court in Sutton v Syston Rugby Football Club Limited. Whilst playing a game of touch rugby, Jack Sutton dived for the try line, suffering a gash to his right knee. The judge found that his injury was caused by a broken cricket marker, which was buried in the grass and had been left behind by members of the cricket club.

The club accepted that they owed a duty of care to those playing on their pitches, which required them to carry out a pitch inspection prior to inviting teams to play on it. Although on this occasion a pitch inspection had not been carried out, the club argued that a general inspection, carried out in line with the risk assessment criteria set by the Rugby Football Union, would not have discovered the broken cricket marker. This argument failed at first instance but the club was successful on appeal.

In deciding the case, the Court of Appeal was clearly mindful of the wider implications to the sport: "I hope that [Mr Sutton] can appreciate that this court has to look at the case from a wider perspective than just his own injury and must not be too astute to impose duties of care which would make rugby playing as a whole more subject to interference from the courts than it should be."

No doubt, the fact that the Court was considering a gashed knee and not a broken neck (see Vowles below), made reaching this conclusion easier. However, the case serves as a reminder to sports clubs and venue owners of the duty they owe to those using their facilities. In determining whether this duty has been discharged, the courts will look to whether the venue owner has complied with the regulations or guidance issued by the governing body of the relevant sport.

Liability – rule enforcers and governing bodies

Liability for injury sustained in the sporting context, most notably with those sports perceived to be...