When you play sports, you do so with the awareness of the risk that you can get hurt. That's just a part of playing sports. But being accidentally injured on the ball field is much different from having another player intentionally do something to harm you. The difference between an accident where no one is responsible and being liable for someone's injuries when they are hurt is the word "intent." For personal injury cases, intentional torts are when someone does something on purpose to cause harm or damage to someone or someone's property.

For instance, if there was a football player out on the field who got sacked by another player and was severely injured, the other player would not be liable for their injuries. However, if the coach specifically told one player to hurt another to take them out of the game, and the player did something that intentionally harmed that player, then they might be held liable for the resulting injuries.

In addition, if an athlete suffers a major injury due to the intentions of another player, it might not just be the other player who is held responsible. Other participants might be liable for the player's injuries including the coach, the referee, or any other person who helped to plan hurting another player. There are also times when agencies might be held responsible for not outlawing things that can lead to injuries or intentional acts that cause harm as a part of their organizational standards.

Common sports injuries include everything from traumatic brain injuries in football to nervous system damage in martial arts. An entire subsegment of personal injury is turning to sports-related injuries and sports law to accommodate the many lawsuits that are being initiated due to players being injured while playing.

As with any other area of personal injury, you have to prove negligence on the part of someone or something. There are four basic components to proving negligence. First, the player must prove that the defendant had a duty to them in some way. Regarding sports, if someone wants to sue the referee, then they would have to prove that the referee had a duty to the player to watch the field and to make sure that everyone was engaging in fair sportsmanship.

The second component is that the player would have to prove that the person who had the duty breached that duty. If the referee saw that one player was intentionally being too rough and didn't stop them before the injured player got hurt, then a case could be made that the referee breached their duty.

The third component would be to prove that the breach of duty was the direct cause of the injury. If the referee failed to step in and the aggressive player hit another player so hard that they suffered a traumatic brain injury, then a case could be made that the referee breached their duty, and because they didn't stop the aggressive play, it directly resulted in the player's traumatic brain injury.

Finally, the plaintiff in a sports-related personal injury tort would have to prove that they actually sustained an injury, which could be demonstrated by medical records and documents. The major difference between a regular personal injury case and suing someone for an intentional personal injury tort would be that, if you were to sue the player, you would have to prove that what they did was intentional. In the instance above, the plaintiff in the case would have to prove that the player intentionally hit them too hard to knock them out of the game, and that lead to their traumatic brain injury.

When you are playing sports, there is always a risk that you could accidentally get hurt. However, being accidentally hurt and being intentionally hurt are two different things. If you believe that someone intentionally hurt you while you were playing sports, you should hire a Santa Ana personal injury attorneys to prove your case in court and get the compensation you are entitled to for your damages and injuries.