June 2024 – Parks & Recreation - 30

LAW REVIEW
signed to prevent and the plaintiff
must be a member of the class that
the statute or regulation was designed
to protect.
Second, the violation of the statute
must be the proximate cause of
the injury. If both prongs are satisfied,
the violation of the statute is
evidence of negligence, but is not
negligence per se [i.e., by itself conclusive
proof].
Preventable Harm
Under Statute?
As described by the appeals court,
proximate cause for alleged negligence
in the violation of a statute
or ordinance " may be determined
by assessing whether the harm suffered
is of a kind which the drafters
intended the statute to prevent. "
In making this determination, the
court focused on understanding
the specific " proximate causation
issue " :
[H]ow the information
that
might be given to coaches with
respect to a concussion protocol,
like if your player sustains a concussion
then make sure you take
them out of play or rest them or
whatever, how that would be a
proximate cause of the injury in
this case unless you're going to tell
me that she had prior concussions
or something like that.
In particular, the court questioned
whether Sydney " wouldn't
have played on the team " had she
received the MSDE concussion
awareness information. Moreover,
the court questioned " what is the
exact thing or information that
had it been given in this case that
would have been done differently
that would make a difference in the
proximate causation chain of the
accident and injury here " :
Thus, to show that the alleged
violations of HG § 14-501 were
a cause in fact of Sydney's injuries,
the Waltons had to adduce
evidence that would permit a
reasonable juror to find that if
Sydney and/or her parents had
received the MSDE Information,
she would not have practiced with
her team or would have altered
her behavior during practice so as
to avoid the injury or that Coach
Gonzaga's review of that same information
would have caused him
to modify the practice so as to prevent
the injury to Sydney.
In this case, the appeals court
found " no such evidence in the record "
to indicate how the MSDE
concussion awareness information
would have influenced Sydney, her
parents, or her soccer coach " to
alter their behavior or restructure
the practice so that Sydney's injury
would have been avoided " :
The information that Sydney and
her parents were entitled to receive
under HG § 14-501(b) was primarily
geared toward understanding and
recognizing the signs and symptoms
of concussions and ensuring proper
reporting to parents, coaches, and
medical personnel....
None of these measures were relevant
to the prevention of Sydney's
injury, which occurred during a
The appeals court
questioned whether
Sydney " wouldn't
have played on
the team " had she
received the MSDE
concussion awareness
information.
30 Parks & Recreation | JUNE 2 0 2 4 | PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G
June 2024 – Parks & Recreation

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