By Ian McGregor, McGregor & Associates
The play started off innocently enough: hockey player shoots the puck and misses the net. He moves in quickly to retrieve the puck when one of his skates suddenly breaks through the ice. It hits the concrete slab. The player’s momentum sends him flying through the air and he hits the end boards head-on. Broken neck. Quadriplegic. Lawsuit.
Fast forward to the negligence trial. The defendant—in this case, everyone involved in rink operation from the Zamboni driver all the way up City Hall—was found negligent for failing to provide safe ice (it was too thin). Settlement: $8M.
Key facts: arena staff failed to take the necessary steps to properly maintain the ice, and also failed to document their maintenance and inspection procedures.
Couldn’t happen today? Wouldn’t bet on it!
This case involved facility maintenance and inspections. There are lots of other reported negligence cases out there involving a lack of supervision, inadequate staff training, poor emergency response procedures, etc. All leading to serious or fatal injuries—and negligence lawsuits.
Couldn’t happen to you? Think again!
While the standard of care is constantly increasing (no surprise there!), there are few documented standards out there to help guide you, and schools don’t know how their operational practices compare to other schools.
In a negligence lawsuit, that’s what the courts do: they determine what and how you are doing relative to other schools.
So what do you need to do?
Given the lack of documented standards, campus recreation departments need to focus on operational practices. Specifically, they need to find out the following:
- How their operational practices measure up to a series of recognized and accepted campus recreation best practices.
- How their practices compare to schools of the same size or in their state—or several other possible variables of interest.
How do you do this?
Invest in the new Best Practices Risk Assessment Tool developed by McGregor & Associates! This tool will help campus recreation departments determine how to benchmark relative to accepted campus recreation industry best practices. Plus, it’ll illustrate how well a department is doing relative to other schools.
For more information on the tool, how it was developed, how it was piloted, and why your department needs it, visit the SportRisk website.
Why McGregor & Associates?
We have been in the campus recreation risk management business for over 20 years and have a proven track record. We are widely known and recognized across North America as the go-to company for risk management help. George Brown, Executive Director of University Recreation at The University of Alabama, says that McGregor & Associate’s “Risk Management Best Practices program provides institutionally-specific feedback allowing our university recreation department to prioritize areas for improvement and enhance the safety and well-being of our participants. The thorough analysis by areas of operations provides our staff with tangible information to determine our next steps and most effective course of action.”
He goes on to say that “this feedback would take much longer and be less objective if we attempted to undertake the reviews on our own. The comparative data is good for learning trends in the best practices of other institutions.” This reliability and commitment to excellence is why NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation has decided to partner with McGregor & Associates in this important “Best Practices” initiative.
Sign up today!
Go to the SportRisk website for more information on this fantastic tool and to register and protect your department from accusations of negligence. Sign up today and you’ll have the chance to take advantage of the Early Bird Draw where the first eight NIRSA member schools in each of six segments (48 schools in all) to register for Level 1 will receive substantial discounts for being early implementers of the Best Practices Risk Assessment Tool.
For more information about McGregor & Associates or about the Best Practices Risk Assessment Tool, please contact Ian McGregor.
