Environmental Education

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AN INJURED ATHLETE IS UNABLE TO PROVE THAT HER COACHES’ MISTREATMENT
TRANSCENDS NEGLIGENCE. BY JOHN T. WOLOHAN
When high school and
college athletes are
injured as a result of
improper medical care, their
first reaction may be to sue
the school for negligence.
Negligence is not the only
legal theory available, however.
An example of an alternative
is highlighted in Yatsko
v. the Tamaqua Area School
District [2007 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 88967].
Yatsko claimed that her
coaches’ failure to obtain
proper treatment for her
injury violated her
constitutional right
to be free from
state occasioned
or created harm.
In 2005, Tracey Yatsko was
a high school student playing
on the Tamaqua High School
basketball team. During a
game, she collided with
another player and banged
her head. As a result of the
collision, Yatsko immediately
began to experience visual
problems and a painful
headache. At the end of the
game, Yatsko informed
30 ATHLETIC BUSINESS APRIL 2008 ATHLETICBUSINESS.COM
Andrea Edmonds, the assistant
basketball coach, that she
had hit her head and was in a
great deal of pain. Instead of
taking Yatsko to the school’s
athletic trainer, Edmonds took
Yatsko to her mother, who
was watching the game, and
told her that her daughter
had been “bumped around in
the game.”
Two days later, even though
Yatsko still had a painful
headache and blurred vision,
she traveled with her basketball
team to its scheduled
game. On the ride there, the
pain was so severe that Yatsko
cried on the bus, telling teammates
and others that she had
suffered a concussion and felt
terrible. During warmups,
head basketball coach Joseph
Berezwick observed that
Yatsko was struggling to participate,
and when he asked
her if there was anything
wrong, she told him that she
felt weak and that she had
suffered a concussion in the
previous game. Armed with
this information, Berezwick
established a signal with
Yatsko and told her to use it
to tell him or Edmonds if she
needed to leave the game.
During the contest,
Berezwick asked Yatsko
several times if she was okay;
she said she was, and played
the entire game. After the
game, however, Yatsko began
to shake and collapsed onto
the locker room floor. But
rather than ask for an ambu-
lance to be dispatched to the
school, Yatsko said she wanted
to go home, and her coaches
helped her board the bus back
to school. On the bus ride
home, Berezwick asked Yatsko
if the bus should stop at the
hospital. Yatsko replied that
she wanted to see her mother.
Once the team arrived back
at Tamaqua High, Berezwick
told Yatsko’s mother that her
daughter had wanted to
play, and that he had made
the wrong call by letting her.
Yatsko’s mother took her to
the hospital, where she was
diagnosed as having suffered
serious brain injuries that
could potentially cause permanent
health problems,
including blurred vision, loss
of balance, headaches and
depression.
As a result of the medical
treatment she received,
Yatsko filed a lawsuit against
Berezwick, Edmonds and
the school district. However,
instead of merely filing a
state-law negligence claim,
Yatsko also claimed that
Berezwick and Edmonds’
failure to obtain proper treatment
for her head injury
violated her constitutional
right to be free from “state
occasioned or created harm to
her bodily integrity and health,”
pursuant to Section 1983 of
the Civil Rights Act. In addition,
Yatsko argued that the
school district violated Section
1983 when it affirmatively
created a danger to students