Sports And Drugs

8 Pages 1958 Words

Until the late 1970’s it was unheard of to hold a coach or owner liable for the actions of a player. Players were seen as grown adults with an intricate skill and knowledge of their sports. They know fully well what actions can and cannot be committed and act on their own accord when they act outside these boundaries. It seemed unfair to hold their coach or the team’s owner accountable when they had nothing to do with the player’s actions at all.
However, this viewpoint towards employer liability changed dramatically with two landmark court cases in the 1970’s; Tamjanovich v. CA Sports Inc—the company that owns the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers—and Hackbart v. Cincinnati Bengals. Each case involved a professional athlete seeking damages against another for actions committed away from the field of play, causing significant physical harm. While in court, both plaintiffs relied upon the principle of “respondeat superior” to hold the owners of the franchises partly responsible for the tort actions of their players.
Respondeat Superior is an Anglo-American common law doctrine. It states that an employer can be held vicariously liable for a tort committed by one of their employees. In a professional sport this relationship between an employer and an employee is equal to the relationship between a coach or owner and a player.
Even though “respondeat superior” has existed as a legal principle for over 700 years it has constantly changed between the two extremes of full employer liability and almost no liability for employee torts.
In the Middle-Ages workers were slaves and considered the property of their owners. Therefore owners were held absolutely liable for any tort they committed. Around the 16th century, the courts shifted to the opposite extreme; an employer could only be held vicariously liable when he had explicitly commanded his employee to commit the specific tort act. This came to be known as the “implied c...