Assumption of Risk in Sports: What It Means for Your Lawsuit

When Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins was visibly impaired after a head injury against the Cincinnati Bengals in 2022 — yet had played days earlier after a prior injury — the NFL Players Association filed a grievance that reignited debate about whether professional athletes truly "assume the risk" of catastrophic brain injury when they take the field. The public outrage over his situation reflects a broader legal reality: the assumption of risk doctrine, long used to shield sports organizations from liability, has real and expanding limits. If you've been injured playing sports and been told "you assumed that risk," this article explains when that argument holds up — and when it doesn't.

What Is the Assumption of Risk Doctrine?

Legal Definition

Assumption of risk is a common law affirmative defense that bars an injured plaintiff from recovering damages when they voluntarily participated in an activity knowing and accepting its inherent risks. The doctrine rests on the principle of autonomous decision-making: if you choose to engage in a dangerous activity with knowledge of its risks, you cannot later seek compensation from others when those foreseeable risks materialize. In sports, the doctrine is applied to shield coaches, facilities, fellow competitors, and organizations from liability for injuries that result from risks inherent to the sport as it is reasonably practiced.

Express vs. Implied Assumption of Risk

There are two forms of assumption of risk. Express assumption of risk occurs when a participant explicitly acknowledges and accepts specific risks in a written agreement — essentially a contractual waiver. Courts generally treat express assumption of risk like a contract, enforcing it when it is clear, specific, and covers the type of injury that occurred. Implied assumption of risk arises without a written agreement — the law infers that a participant accepted certain risks based on their voluntary participation in a known dangerous activity. A snowboarder who hits the slopes without any signed agreement still impliedly assumes the risk of falls inherent to snowboarding.

Primary vs. Secondary Assumption of Risk

California and several other states distinguish between primary and secondary assumption of risk. Primary assumption of risk is a complete bar to recovery — it negates the defendant's duty of care entirely for risks inherent to the sport. Secondary assumption of risk, by contrast, is treated as comparative fault — the plaintiff's voluntary acceptance of a known risk reduces (but does not eliminate) their recovery. This distinction is critical: in primary assumption of risk jurisdictions, if your injury falls within the inherent risks category, your lawsuit fails entirely regardless of how careless the defendant was. In secondary assumption of risk states, you may still recover a portion of your damages.

What Risks Do Athletes Actually Assume?

Inherent Risks of Specific Sports

Each sport has a defined set of inherent risks that participants are deemed to accept. These are risks that cannot be eliminated without fundamentally altering the nature of the sport. For football, inherent risks include tackles, blocks, collisions with other players, and the physical demands of the game. For ice hockey, inherent risks include body checks, puck impacts, and falls on ice. For gymnastics, inherent risks include falls from apparatus and muscle strain from demanding physical maneuvers. Courts have developed substantial case law defining these inherent risks for virtually every major sport. Key cases from California's Supreme Court — Knight v. Jewett (1992), the foundational modern case — established the framework that most states now follow.

Co-Participant Risks

Athletes generally assume the risk of ordinary contact from co-participants — including contact that is aggressive but consistent with the sport. A soccer player assumes the risk of physical tackles even if a particular tackle was poorly timed. A basketball player assumes the risk of physical contact in the paint even if it results in a fall. However, the assumption of risk for co-participant conduct typically requires the injuring party to have acted with at most ordinary negligence. Conduct that is reckless — showing conscious disregard for the safety of others — is typically outside the scope of assumed risk, meaning you can sue a co-participant for reckless (though not merely negligent) injury-causing conduct during competition.

Known Condition Risks

If a participant is aware of a specific dangerous condition and chooses to proceed anyway, they may be found to have assumed that specific risk. A tennis player who notices a crack in the court surface and continues playing without reporting it may have assumed the risk of injury from that crack. However, this principle has important limits: hidden hazards, hazards that facility operators should have corrected, and hazards that go beyond ordinary sports conditions are generally not covered by assumption of risk even if the participant was somewhat aware of them.

Where Assumption of Risk Ends: The Limits of the Defense

Negligently Created Risks

This is the most important limitation on assumption of risk: the doctrine does not protect defendants from liability for negligently created risks that go beyond what is inherent to the sport. An athlete does not assume the risk of playing on a field that a facility negligently failed to maintain. A gym member does not assume the risk of being injured by a machine the gym knew was defective. A player does not assume the risk of a team physician clearing them to return to play against proper medical judgment. The California Supreme Court articulated this principle in Knight v. Jewett: defendants retain a duty not to increase the risks inherent in the sport through their own negligence, and assumption of risk does not cover injuries from those negligently created risks.

Reckless or Intentional Conduct

No jurisdiction allows assumption of risk to bar claims for reckless or intentional harm. If a coach deliberately injures an athlete, if a facility knowingly operates with catastrophically dangerous conditions, or if a co-participant deliberately targets another player with intent to injure, assumption of risk offers the defendant no protection. The Tagovailoa situation illustrates this principle: the allegation was that the NFL and the Dolphins acted recklessly in failing to follow concussion protocols, and the NFLPA argued that no player consents to the NFL's failure to enforce its own medical standards — even in a contact sport.

Minors and Assumption of Risk

The assumption of risk doctrine applies differently to minors. Most courts hold that children cannot fully appreciate the risks of sporting activities in the way adults can, and therefore apply a modified standard that takes the child's age, maturity, and experience into account. Additionally, many states have held that parents cannot sign away a minor child's right to sue for negligence — a parental waiver or assumption of risk agreement signed on behalf of a child may be unenforceable when the child later tries to assert their own claims. This is particularly important for youth sports injuries, where the doctrine could otherwise entirely eliminate accountability for facility and organizational negligence.

Professional Duty Exception

Courts in many jurisdictions apply an important exception for professionals with a special duty to protect participants from the risks of their sport. Coaches, referees, medical staff, and facility operators do not benefit from assumption of risk when the plaintiff's injury results from their failure to perform duties specifically designed to manage and reduce the inherent risks of the sport. A referee assumes management of game safety — if a referee fails to call repeated dangerous fouls and an athlete is badly injured by a reckless opponent, the referee's inaction may not be excused by the plaintiff's assumption of contact risks in the game.

State-by-State Variations in Assumption of Risk

States That Apply Primary Assumption of Risk

California is the most well-known primary assumption of risk state — under Knight v. Jewett, defendants face no duty for inherent sport risks and the doctrine acts as a complete bar. New York applies a similar framework under the "primary assumption of risk" doctrine for co-participant and competitive sports injury cases. Florida, Michigan, and several other states have adopted comparable approaches that provide strong defendant protection for inherent risks. In these states, if your injury falls within inherent sports risks, you face a very high hurdle to recovery regardless of what the defendant did.

States That Apply Comparative Assumption of Risk

States following pure or modified comparative negligence often treat assumption of risk as just another form of comparative fault rather than a complete bar. In Texas, for example, a plaintiff's assumption of risk is weighed as a percentage of fault against the defendant's negligence — if you are 40% responsible and the defendant is 60% responsible, you recover 60% of your damages. This approach is more favorable to plaintiffs and is increasingly common as states have modernized their tort frameworks.

Practical Impact on Your Sports Injury Lawsuit

How Defense Attorneys Use Assumption of Risk

Defense attorneys in sports injury cases routinely argue assumption of risk as a threshold defense to try to get cases dismissed before trial. They argue that the plaintiff's injury was caused by an inherent risk of the sport, that the plaintiff voluntarily assumed that risk, and therefore the defendant owed no duty and cannot be held liable. If the court accepts this argument on a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment, the case never reaches a jury. Understanding how courts have applied assumption of risk in your specific sport and jurisdiction — and identifying why your injury went beyond inherent risks — is therefore critical to keeping your case alive.

Overcoming the Defense with Evidence

The most effective way to defeat an assumption of risk defense is to establish that your injury resulted from the defendant's negligence rather than from inherent sport risks. This typically requires: expert testimony from coaches, safety specialists, or sports medicine professionals explaining why the conditions that caused your injury exceed normal sport risks; evidence that the defendant was aware of the specific dangerous condition and failed to correct it; documentation showing that the defendant violated their own safety protocols or industry standards; and case law from your jurisdiction showing that courts have allowed similar claims to proceed despite assumption of risk defenses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does signing a sports waiver mean I assumed all risks?

No. Express assumption of risk through a waiver only covers risks specifically described in the waiver. It cannot cover gross negligence or recklessness in most states. The waiver must also be enforceable under your state's specific requirements — vague or overly broad waivers are sometimes invalidated.

Can assumption of risk defeat a concussion lawsuit?

This is actively litigated. Courts are increasingly skeptical of broad assumption of risk defenses in concussion cases, particularly when organizations failed to follow their own concussion protocols or concealed the risks of head trauma from athletes. The NFL's $1 billion concussion settlement was partly driven by the weakness of its assumption of risk defense given evidence the league concealed known concussion risks.

Does assumption of risk apply to spectators at sports events?

Partially. Spectators assume some inherent risks — a baseball fan sitting near the field assumes the risk of errant foul balls, which is why MLB stadiums are not required to net every section. However, spectators do not assume risks created by facility negligence, structural failures, or conditions beyond what any reasonable spectator would expect.

Can a child assume the risk of a sports injury?

Children can assume risks appropriate to their age and experience, but courts apply a modified standard that takes immaturity into account. Parental waivers signing away a child's right to sue are often unenforceable. If your child was injured in youth sports due to facility or organizational negligence, the assumption of risk defense is much weaker than it would be for an adult plaintiff.

What if I was injured by an unknown risk I wasn't warned about?

Assumption of risk requires knowledge of the specific risk. If a facility or organization was aware of a dangerous condition and failed to warn participants, and that condition was not an obvious inherent risk of the sport, assumption of risk is unlikely to bar your claim. The duty to warn is a component of the duty of care, and failure to warn can itself constitute actionable negligence.

Conclusion

The assumption of risk doctrine is a real and powerful defense in sports injury cases — but it is not the all-encompassing shield that many defendants claim it to be. Athletes accept the inherent physical risks of their chosen sports, but they do not accept the risk of negligently maintained facilities, reckless coaching decisions, defective equipment, or organizations that willfully ignore established safety protocols. The key legal principle to remember is this: assumption of risk covers what is genuinely inherent to the sport; it does not cover injuries caused by someone else's preventable failures. If you've been injured in a sports context and faced an assumption of risk defense, analyze whether your injury truly fell within normal sport risks or whether negligence created a risk that goes beyond what you voluntarily accepted. Consulting an experienced sports injury attorney is the most reliable way to make that assessment and determine whether your case can succeed despite this common defense.