Appellate Court Finds District May Be Liable for Sports Camp Injury 

The Fifth District Appellate Court reversed and remanded the trial court's dismissal of a parent's allegation of ordinary negligence and willful and wanton conduct against the school district, its superintendent and several football coaches when her son was injured during a summer football camp sponsored by the district. 

Plaintiff alleges that the campers were instructed by the coaches to run from the dressing room to the practice field and, in doing so, the boy tripped on a bumper used for the shot-put pit which was situated on the route and obscured by weeds.  To state a cause of action in negligence, plaintiff must sufficiently establish 1) that defendants owed plaintiff a duty of care 2) a breach of that duty, and 3) an injury proximately caused by that breach.  To be immune from such cause of action, defendants must establish that the facility where the accident occurred was a recreational facility under the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act (the "Act").  Plaintiff's amended complaint asserted that the facility was being used for educational purposes on the date of the injury and, therefore, immunity from common law negligence under the Act did not apply.

The court agreed with the plaintiff stating that, "because the property was located on school grounds and was being used by the School District for a summer camp, there is, at a minimum, an inference that the property in question was being used for educational purposes"; moreover, they found the trial court's dismissal to be premature as the parties' theories regarding the property's use were not given the opportunity to be fully developed.

Most significantly, the court found plaintiff to have sufficiently alleged willful and wanton conduct on the part of the defendants, in which case, even if immunity under the Act was found to protect the district on the basis of the property's intended use, the district would still be subject to liability.  Case law has shown that it is not enough to allege that the condition of the property was dangerous; and in this circumstance, plaintiff goes further in her assertion that the coaches specifically instructed the campers to traverse the path of the hazard that caused the injury.  The court states, "If the allegations in the complaint can be proven, a rational trier of fact could decide that defendants took a course of action that showed an utter indifference or conscious disregard for [the campers'] safety."