SARATOGA SPRINGS SPORTING INJURY LAWYERS

D’Orazio Peterson PC provides legal representation to anyone injured while participating in sports. Our law firm has helped parents bring legal claims on behalf of children injured in school or summer sports activities. We can also help adults who are injured in college or while playing in private sports leagues. Give us a call. Our Saratoga Springs sporting injury lawyer can analyze whether you can bring a legal claim. This area of law is confusing. There are many considerations, including who is to blame for the injury and whether they are immune from a lawsuit.

Common Sports Injuries

Athletes can suffer all sorts of injuries. Even non-contact sports can lead to painful bodily injuries if the playing field or turf is defective in some way, or if equipment fails to work properly.

We can help athletes suffering from:

• Knee injuries. The knee is complex, and an athlete can sprain or even tear ligaments in their knees if their foot plants in the wrong way or their body twists in an awkward fashion.
• Traumatic brain injuries. Contact to the head can lead to a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Some common symptoms include a brief loss of consciousness, impaired movement, and lack of coordination. A mild TBI is a concussion, which can take weeks of rest. More serious TBIs often result in long-lasting disabilities.
• Back injuries. Back injuries range from sprains and strains to more serious injuries like herniated discs. In high-impact sports like hockey, an athlete could damage the vertebrae and suffer impaired movement or sensation.
• Fractures. Many sporting accidents result in broken bones. Although you might think this is a relatively minor injury, fractures have many complications.
• Spinal cord injuries. These injuries are among the most dramatic. A person is often permanently paralyzed from the point of injury.

These are some of the most common sporting injuries. Call us if you were hurt in any way while participating in sports.

Pursuing a Legal Claim for a Sporting Injury

A major question is whether you can seek financial compensation for the injury. Some sports allow contact, like football and hockey. Others are supposedly non-contact, including soccer, although players run into each other all the time.

The fact that a sport allows contact doesn’t mean that you can’t seek compensation if you are hurt. The law isn’t that black and white. Instead, we need to review whether any individual or entity has liability.

We might seek financial compensation for the following reasons:

• Defective playing surface. If the field is dangerous, then an athlete can suffer a serious injury even without contact. For example, a football player’s foot could get caught in a divot on the field, leading to a twisted knee. A slippery basketball court in the summer can lead to players falling and breaking their arms. The playing surface needs to be safe. We might bring a premises liability claim when it isn’t.
• Defective equipment. The equipment an athlete uses could have a manufacturing or design defect.
• Failure to enforce the rules. The officials overseeing the contest might have allowed an unacceptable level of contact because they failed to enforce the rules. When participants are hurt, then the league could be to blame.
• Excessive heat. Some coaches will ignore extreme heat in the summer and work their players too hard. Even young athletes can collapse from heat stroke.

Depending on the facts, we might seek compensation from a school, sports league, equipment manufacturer, or an individual athlete or coach. Call D’Orazio Peterson PC so we can begin to investigate what happened.

Suing a School District in New York

A school district might have liability for a sporting injury. Unfortunately, suing a school district isn’t as simple as suing a private citizen for an accident. You will typically need to submit a notice of claim within 90 days. This gives the district a chance to investigate and possibly offer a settlement. You can only file a lawsuit after the district denies the claim or 30 days have passed.

There can be other challenges with suing a school. The district might have possession of most of the relevant evidence, and they aren’t eager to turn it over. Please call our firm. We know what hoops to jump through to seek compensation from a school.

Call Our Saratoga Springs Personal Injury Lawyers

Injured athletes and their families have a limited amount of time to sue. Please call D’Orazio Peterson PC. You can schedule a free consultation with a member of our office to discuss your injuries and the sequence of events leading up to it. We will then advise you of your rights and discuss other steps if you hire us.

D’Orazio Peterson PC

193 Lake Avenue
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

518-308-8339

518-633-5106 (fax)