John T. Wolohan
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Articles by John T. Wolohan
Indifference to Football Camp Hazing, Harassment Costs Washington School District $17M
Editor’s note: This article includes depictions of sexual abuse of minors that may be triggering for some readers. If you are an athlete, coach or administrator and are aware of hazing or abuse in your athletics programs, report the abuse to administration and/or call the Courage First Athlete Helpline at (888) 279-1026. In recent decades, an increasing number of high schools have allowed coaches to hold preseason football camps to teach fundamentals and build team unity.
Questions Remain in Wake of SCOTUS Transgender Ruling
Over the past few years, this column has highlighted cases involving transgender athletes and their attempts to compete in sports aligning with their gender identity, not their gender recorded at birth (see October 2024, December 2023 and May 2022). As a result of the national headlines surrounding transgender athletes, intense policy debate and legal disputes ensued over whether transgender females, assigned male at birth, should be allowed to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
Five Legal Cases That Shaped the Past Half-Century of Sports
Over the past 50 years, the athletics, fitness and recreation industries have changed dramatically — often through legal action. Both at the federal and state levels, legislatures have passed laws and courts have made rulings that have attempted to increase opportunities for participants, while also making facilities safer and more accessible. The list below is one person’s take on the most important legal cases that shaped the past half-century.
Court Rules Athlete Sought Eligibility Waiver for Fifth High School Season, Not Because of Disability
One of the biggest issues facing high school athletics associations today is the review of cases involving athletes with physical or mental disabilities who want to continue participating in sports in violation of various eligibility rules.
Annual Sports Interest Survey Critical to Kentucky’s Defense in Title IX Case
Since the passage of Title IX of the Educational Amendment Act of 1972, schools have worked to eliminate gender discrimination in educational programs. While the language in Title IX does not mention equity in athletics, the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now the U.S. Department of Education) in 1979 issued a Policy Interpretation to provide additional guidance on what constitutes “equal opportunity” in intercollegiate athletics.
Contracted Figure Skating Coach Found Solely Liable for Abuse of Minor — at a Cost of $12.5M
Editor's Note: Details of this case may be triggering to some readers While sports can foster positive relationships between youths and the adults that sports organizations entrust to positions of authority, sexual assault of minor athletes by coaches, trainers and administrators is a serious problem. To protect minor athletes and others from adults in positions of authority, the United States Center for SafeSport created the Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies (MAAPP).
How the SCORE Act and SAFE Act Offer Competing Visions for the Future of College Athletics
In recent years, college athletics has undergone a transformation. Once the realm of amateur students, college sports conferences have become minor professional leagues occupied by paid athletes. This transformation began when the National Collegiate Athletic Association removed restrictions on individual athletes who sought to profit off their name, image and likeness. This in turn led to several antitrust challenges, which eventually resulted in the House v. NCAA settlement.
Failure to Recognize How Users Navigate Club Floor Leads to Liability Over Tripping Hazard
Sports and recreation professionals know that the risk of injury during physical activities is unavoidable. To protect themselves from liability and economic loss, facility owners and service providers often rely on waivers. A waiver is a written contract in which a participant or user of a service, in consideration for the right to participate in the activity, agrees to relinquish the right to pursue future legal action against the service provider or its employees.
How College Athletes Seek Legal Remedies Amid the Shifting Rules Landscape
High school and college athletics associations have several rules that regulate an athlete’s eligibility to compete and their ability to transfer schools. Courts have traditionally held that private athletic associations have the right to regulate athletes in any way, as agreed upon by association members.
Waterpark’s Improperly Installed Used Lily Pads Lead to $9M Jury Award
As pointed out frequently in this space, one of the most important legal duties of sports and recreation facilities is to provide a safe environment for activities to be performed. To do this, facility owners and operators have a legal duty to regularly inspect facilities for dangers, both seen and unseen. Under the law, clients who visit a sports or recreation property are considered “invitees,” and as such are owed the highest level of care.
MLS Team Doctor’s Rush to Perform Surgery on Player Leads to $20.6M in Damages
While coaches owe their players a duty to properly instruct and provide them with a safe environment for the activities to be performed, team doctors also owe athletes a duty of care — to provide proper medical attention by using all of their skills and training to keep athletes as safe as possible in the event of injury.
Mariners Fans’ ADA Claim: Inadequate Sightlines for Wheelchair Users at T-Mobile Park
When signed into law in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was intended “to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities” (42 U.S.C. 12101 (b)(1).
Liability Lands With Three Entities Following Platform Collapse at Leased Rec Space
When someone is injured at a recreation facility, the first person usually held responsible for the injuries is the operator of the facility. Under the theory of premise liability, the operator of a recreation facility owes a duty of reasonable care to guard against any dangerous conditions on the property.
Firing Team Doctor Amid Return-to-Play Conflicts Costs Penn State $5.25M
While typically receiving little publicity, one position that comes with built-in conflicts of interest is that of team doctor, because team doctors have two bosses. While a personal physician has only one duty — to provide patients with the best care possible — team doctors working for a college athletic department or professional sports franchise serve two clients, and those clients often have conflicting needs.
School District’s Failure to Correct Dangerous Field Condition Leads to $31M Settlement
Sports and recreation providers, both public and private, have a legal duty to ensure that the facilities they use are suitable for the intended activity. Because providers have this legal obligation to keep users safe from unreasonable risks, it is essential that facility owners and employees conduct monthly, weekly or even daily inspections of their facilities. That said, merely inspecting the facility is not enough.
Jury Concludes
As anyone who works in the sports and recreation industries should know, the number one cause of lawsuits is negligence. In most of these cases, the facility or its employees failed to act with the level of care that was required of them under the circumstances. Perhaps the facility or its employees failed to provide proper supervision or medical care, when it owed such a duty to the people using the facility.
Transgender Student’s Lawsuit Over Locker Room Access Costs District Millions
One of the most debated issues facing school and athletics administrators today involves the rights of transgender athletes. To some administrators, gender is binary, and based on the gender assigned at birth. People are either female with two X chromosomes or male with an X and a Y chromosome. Others see gender as linear, with males and females representing only two of many points on a fluid spectrum.
Fan Injured in Dodger Stadium Security Confrontation Collects Percentage of Negligence Claim
When fans purchase tickets to attend a sporting event, they have one simple expectation — that the facility owners and operators will provide a safe environment for watching the game. While facility owners and operators are not obligated to guarantee the safety of fans from every possible injury once fans come into the facility, the owners and operators are liable for those dangers that are known or that they should have discovered through reasonable inspections.
Though Not as Liable as Perpetrator, District Still Found 40 Percent At Fault for Coach’s Abuse
It seems nearly impossible these days to read a newspaper or website without coming across a new story of young athletes being sexually abused by their coaches, trainers or team doctors. In March, Kylie McKenzie was awarded $9Â million in damages after a jury in federal court in Florida found that the U.S. Tennis Association failed to protect her from one of her coaches, Anibal Aranda, at one of its training centers when McKenzie was a teenager.
How a Reassigned High School Football Coach and Athletic Director Received $200K by Suing for Defamation
While coaches have come to expect a certain amount of verbal abuse from overzealous fans or upset parents as an unfortunate part of the job, they do not typically receive such abuse from their own administrators or colleagues. Even in cases where a coach is about to be fired, administrators still need to be careful about what they say in public. A good case that illustrates the danger administrators face because of defamation laws when disciplining or firing coaches is Cruce v.
What Changed Between the NLRB's Northwestern and Dartmouth Unionization Cases?
In February, the regional director for the National Labor Relations Board in Boston held that Dartmouth College’s basketball players were “employees” within the meaning of Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. As a result, the NLRB held that the 15 members of the men’s basketball team could hold a secret ballot to determine whether they wish to be represented for purposes of collective bargaining.
Injured Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Student Awarded $46 Million in Negligence Lawsuit Against Facility
Negligence is the most common type of lawsuit that recreation and fitness facilities — and the professionals who manage them — will face. It seems like every time someone is injured at a recreation or fitness facility, a lawsuit is filed. The law, however, does not require that owners and operators ensure everyone using the facility is safe from every conceivable injury.
Idaho Sports Participation Law Challenged by Boise State Transgender Student, Cisgender Prep Athlete
Within the past three years, 21 states have passed laws requiring high school and college athletes to participate in school sports in accordance with their gender at birth. One of those states — Idaho — passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which like many of the new laws was enacted in the name of protecting biological female athletes.
Jury Awards USF Basketball Player $750K Over Coach’s Abuse
From the professional level to youth leagues, being a coach is a hard job. Coaches must not only teach basic skills, but also push their athletes physically and mentally beyond their self-perceived limits in the interest of improved, if not optimal, performance. In doing so, coaches often are forced to walk a fine line between being merely tough and being outright abusive. At the college level, coaching can be particularly challenging given the pressure to win games or risk losing the job.
Court: Planet Fitness Kiosk Waiver Enforceable in Injury Lawsuit
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many health and fitness clubs moved away from face-to-face registrations, where the new member filled out the membership registration forms and liability waivers on site. Instead, clubs migrated to safer and, in most cases, more efficient contactless methods Perhaps the easiest method used by facilities was simply to have new members register and complete the waiver online.
Assault in Unsupervised Locker Room Costs District $3.25 Million in Sexual Harassment Lawsuit
Coaching involves more than overseeing what happens on the field, court or ice. Coaches also need to control the locker room. This is especially true at the high school and college levels, where athletes hazing new members of the team may be common practice in some sports and at certain schools. When coaches do not supervise the locker room, they open themselves and their schools to the actions of immature or malicious individuals.
Alabama State Violates Title VII, Pays Terminated Softball Coach $800K
One area of sports law that seems to receive little attention is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII is a comprehensive federal law that makes it illegal for an employer to “discriminate against any individual with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2(a)).
Court Refuses to Count Esports Participants in Title IX Case
Are esports actual sports? While the question may seem like a harmless one, the answer could have a significant impact on colleges that offer both esports programs and traditional intercollegiate sports. If esports are considered a sport within the purview of Title IX, the courts will need to consider the number and gender of team members when reviewing whether participation opportunities for male and female athletes are provided in numbers proportionate to their respective enrollments.
Heat-Related Death of Teen Brings Murder Charges for Coaches
When you hear about athletes dying of heat-related causes, the first thought in most peoples’ minds is late-summer preseason football practices. The athletes, usually overweight and out of shape, are forced to participate in conditioning drills during the hottest days of the year — often while wearing equipment and helmets, and in some cases on synthetic turf, increasing the temperature on the field.
Unsupervised Daycare Costs Club’s Parent Company $13M
As anyone who owns or manages a recreation facility knows, the key to a successful recreation business is customer service. Meeting all the needs of your patrons in terms of equipment, activities and other amenities is essential. One amenity that an increasing number of health clubs have added to assist working or busy parents is childcare.
Slip-And-Fall Case Illustrates Legal Options for School Districts
Whenever someone is injured participating in sports, schools and recreation providers often find themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit. While it is true that accidents happen, and that service providers are not liable for every injury, it is also true that in most cases the lawsuits claim that the school or recreation providers were negligent and that their failure to exercise reasonable care resulted in the person’s injury.
Johnson v. NCAA Latest Case to Challenge College Sports Amateurism Model
Over the past 10 years, a series of legal cases have chipped away at the foundation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s amateur athletics model. The first case was in 2015, when the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court’s decision in O’Bannon v. NCAA, 802 F.3d 1049 (2015) that the NCAA’s restrictions on college athletes violated federal antitrust law.
Behind the Supreme Court’s Decision in First Amendment Case Involving Football Coach Joseph Kennedy’s Postgame Prayers
One of the reasons the First Amendment is one of most litigated amendments to the United States Constitution is because of the inherent conflict in the First Amendment’s language concerning religion. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” In inserting the language, which is known as the Establishment Clause, Thomas Jefferson intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.
Failure to Act on Abusive Coach Costs District $10M
In 2018, Michigan State University agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women who were sexually abused by the university’s team physician, Larry Nassar. In 2021, the University of Michigan agreed to a $490 million settlement with more than 1,000 former students who said they were sexually abused by UM sports doctor Robert Anderson dating back to the 1960s.
Court Opinions Still Vary When Interpreting Title IX
When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination in employment, it somehow failed to include education. At the time, only one-fourth of all college students were female, and the number of females in graduate, law or medical school was below 10 percent.
Transgender Male’s Appeal Over Access Costs District $4M
One of the most intense debates in sports today centers on the rights of transgender athletes. To some, gender is binary, and based on the gender you are assigned at birth, you are either female (two X chromosomes) or male (an X and a Y chromosome). As a result, 11 states have now passed laws prohibiting transgender female athletes from competing against athletes who are born female.
Failure to Pull Concussed Player from Game Costs District $600K
Among the biggest issues facing sports administrators over the past decade is the long-term effects on athletes of concussions and subconcussive blows to the head. From youth sports to the professional level, leagues and organizations have taken steps to prevent their players from suffering — or from exacerbating the adverse impacts of — head injuries.
Labor Board Signals Major Changes to Athlete Classification, Amateurism
In March 2014, the regional director for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Chicago held that Northwestern University football players who receive grant-in-aid scholarships are “employees” within the meaning of Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act. As a result of the regional director’s findings, scholarship football players would have been entitled to unionize and be represented for the purposes of collective bargaining [Northwestern University v.
How UConn Rowers Sued to Get Sport Reinstated
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and schools around the country were forced to shut down their athletic programs, more than 30 colleges and universities announced that they would be cutting teams to balance their budgets. While not unexpected considering the revenue losses colleges and universities faced as a result of canceling live athletic events and in-person classes, what made this round of cuts different was that schools began to announce cuts to women’s athletic teams.
How has California’s “Fair Pay to Play” Act changed college sport, if at all?
Tuesday, 21 July 2020 Author: John Wolohan In September 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 206 (SB 206), the Fair Pay to Play Act (the Act), into law. [1] The Act, which is not scheduled to become law until January 1, 2023,[2] grants college athletes in California the right to hire agents and be paid for endorsements.
Paving the way to professionalism for college athletes - A review California’s Fair Pay for Play Act
Friday, 20 September 2019 Author: John Wolohan Tick, tock, tick, tock …. the State of California has made its move; now the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is on the clock. On September 11, 2019, the California State Senate voted 39 – 0 to enact California Senate Bill 206 (SB 206), the Fair Pay to Play Act (the Act).
School Board Negligent in Coach’s Abuse
When recreation and school administrators think about employment law, they usually focus on the area of law related to the process of recruiting, interviewing and hiring employees. This process is only a small part of employment law. Once a sports or recreation organization has recruited and hired its preferred candidate, its legal obligation is still not finished.
The potential impact of the Murphy v. NCAA decision on sports betting in the United States
Thursday, 31 May 2018 Author: John Wolohan On 14 May 2018, the United States Supreme Court finally handed down its long-awaited decision in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (formerly Christie v NCAA)1. The case, which has been winding its way through the Federal courts since 2012, involved the State of New Jersey’s attempt to overturn the federal ban on state-sanctioned single-game sports wagering outside of Nevada.
Why Legalizing Sports Betting Is Good for the NCAA
Last week the United States Supreme Court, in a long-awaited decision that is sure to have major implications for college athletics, struck down the federal ban on single-game sports betting in states other than Nevada (where the ban did not apply). In Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (formerly Christie v.
Commentary: How Legal Sports Betting Could Benefit the Pro Leagues
Last week, the United States Supreme Court finally handed down its long-awaited decision in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (formerly Christie v. NCAA). The case, which has been winding its way through the federal courts since 2012, involved the state of New Jersey’s attempt to overturn the federal ban on single-game sports wagering outside of Nevada.
Why Legalizing Sports Betting Is Good For the NCAA
Last week the United States Supreme Court, in a long-awaited decision that is sure to have major implications for college athletics, struck down the federal ban on single-game sports betting in states other than Nevada (where the ban did not apply...
Sports Betting in the United States: Supreme Court begins hearing Christie v. NCAA
John Wolohan On Monday, December 4, 2017 the United States Supreme Court began hearing legal arguments in Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) concerning New Jersey’s attempt to change its laws to permit gambling on professional and college sport events in Atlantic City casinos and at the state’s horse racing tracks.
How to Protect Your Trademarks
One of the most valuable properties that a sports organization can own is its name. For example, when you hear the words "Nike," "New England Patriots," "Planet Fitness" or "Final Four," certain images come to mind. Since companies, teams and organizations work hard and spend a lot of money to develop the right image, it is essential that they properly protect their name or brand by trademarking it. Here are five tips that will help you protect your trademarks from unauthorized use: 1.
Court: Leagues Have Duty to Shield Youths from Predators
In an effort to protect minors from sexual predators, a number of youth sports organizations have developed policies designed to educate adult volunteers, coaches, employees, parents and players regarding the prevention and detection of sexual abuse. Additionally, youth organizations have also started mandating criminal background checks of all adult volunteers, coaches and employees.
What the National Labor Relations Board opinion means for college football players
On 3 April 2017, the University of North Carolina defeated Gonzaga University for the 2017 men’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball championship. The game culminated what is a three-week long event featuring the 68 “best”[1] college teams in the USA known as “March Madness”.
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