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An exercise that Indiana University coaches instructed football players to perform was within the range of ordinary behavior involved in strength and conditioning, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Monday in overturning a lower court’s decision after a former member of IU’s football team sued the school for an eye injury he suffered during a strength training session.
The Monroe Circuit Court initially denied the university’s motion for summary judgment after Chris Bradberry and his parents filed the lawsuit in 2022.
The appellate court reversed that denial and remanded the case, with instructions for the trial court to grant IU’s motion for summary judgment.
Bradberry was an offensive lineman for IU’s football team in January 2022 and had been working out with an athletic trainer during a voluntary pre-season workout at an IU gym when his injury occurred.
According to court documents, the team’s strength and conditioning coaches planned for Bradberry and his teammates to perform resistance band face pulls using the post of a Woodway machine to hold the bands in place. While Woodway machines are not designed for the exercise, the coaches determined the machine’s vertical post could be used to secure the bands.
During Bradberry’s workout, however, the bands slipped over the top of the post and struck him in his left eye, causing significant injuries including irreversible damage to his left retina.
In the appellate court’s opinion, written by Judge Mary DeBoer, the court ruled the university should be granted summary judgment because its strength and conditioning coaches were considered sports participants under Pfenning v. Lineman.
The court also ruled that the exercise the university’s coaches instructed players to perform was within the range of ordinary behavior involved in football strength and conditioning, and that the appellees failed to show evidence that the coaches intentionally or recklessly caused the player’s injuries.
Teresa Mackin, Indiana University’s deputy director for media relations, did not immediately respond to The Indiana Lawyer’s request for comment.
The Bradberrys are represented by Christopher Stevenson, an attorney with the Lafayette-based firm Ball Eggleston PC.
Stevenson issued the following statement to The Indiana Lawyer:
“On behalf of the Bradberry family, we are disappointed that the Court of Appeals chose to reverse Judge Bradley’s decision denying IU’s motion for summary judgment. Chris Bradberry should not have sustained a life altering eye injury through IU coaches’ alleged reckless design of a resistance band exercise. The Court of Appeals’ opinion leaves open questions that arguably should be decided by the Indiana Supreme Court regarding sports injury cases. We will be considering options, including seeking transfer.”
In October 2022, Bradberry sued IU for negligence and reckless and intentional misconduct, while his parents asserted a loss of services claim, alleging that the use of the Woodway machine was “totally outside the range of ordinary activity involved in playing the sport of football.”
IU moved for summary judgment, arguing that it was not liable for Bradberry’s injury as a matter of law under Pfenning.
The trial court denied IU’s motion, stating that while “[c]oaches can be considered participants in sporting events[,]” IU’s S&C coaches were not actively participating in the exercise that injured Bradberry since “no coach was spotting [him] or directly instructing him.”
The appellate court’s opinion stands on three points: 1) whether IU’s strength and conditioning coaches involved in the lawsuit were considered “participants” under Pfenning v. Lineman, 2) if the face pull exercise coaches asked Bradberry and other players to do was ordinary to the sport, and 3) whether the coaches were reckless in how they set up the exercise that led to Bradberry’s injuries.
The appellate court ruled that neither Pfenning nor any case applying it has held that a sports participant must have been directly involved in the activity that caused an injury to be considered a participant and therefore be protected from liability for ordinary coaching decisions.
The court states that this principle applies not only to “game-time decision[s,]” as the Bradberrys contend, but also to decisions made by coaches in planning and supervising practices and workouts that are ordinary in their sport.
“To hold under these facts that the S&C coaches running the workout were not ‘participating’ would narrow the definition of ‘participant’ in contravention of Pfenning’s stated policy goals,” DeBoer wrote.
The Bradberrys had argued that the Woodway configuration was not the proper way to perform the exercise and therefore created a genuine issue of fact as to whether the face pull exercise is ordinary in the sport.
In response, the court ruled that while the way the coaches had Bradberry perform the exercise was not technically correct or the safest option, the Bradberrys’ request for the court to second-guess the coaches’ decisions in designing and implementing the exercise is “the kind of judicial armchair-quarterbacking the Pfenning sports negligence framework was designed to avoid.”
The court also determined that nothing in the evidence presented by the Bradberrys showed that the coaches were aware of an inherent danger associated with using the Woodway machine for the exercise or that the coaches were motivated by an indifference to player safety.
One of the coaches had testified that he personally tested the configuration and had witnessed players performing thousands of repetitions using the machine without injury, according to court documents.
The coaches also testified that they previously had the players perform the exercise around a weight rack, but the sharp edges of the rack caused the bands to fray. Concerned that the bands would break, the coaches transitioned to using the Woodway post, which had rounded edges, court documents stated.
The court determined that even if the Woodway configuration was technically unsafe, the coaches’ decision to use that configuration was “motivated by a concern for player safety, not a conscious disregard for it.”
The case is The Trustees of Indiana University v. Chris Bradberry, et al., 25A-CT-00284.
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