Can you sue someone for a sports injury?
Personal Injury - September 16, 2026
Sometimes. You can sue for a sports injury in Illinois, but getting hurt playing a sport doesn’t by itself make anyone legally responsible. It depends on how the injury occurred and on which risks you accepted by playing.
Sports injuries can involve another player, an unsafe facility, defective equipment, or the organization that runs sporting events. A Gurnee personal injury lawyer can look at whether yours supports a personal injury claim.
Can you sue another player who injured you during a game?
Usually not. Illinois applies a contact sports exception, so a participant owes co-participants no duty of ordinary care, and ordinary negligence during play isn’t enough.
The Illinois Supreme Court set that rule in 1995, in a case about students kicking a crumpled can in a dorm lobby, so the exception reaches a pickup game and not only a league. In 2008, the court went further for full-contact sports like hockey and tackle football: a player is liable only for intentionally injuring someone, or for conduct so reckless it falls totally outside the ordinary range of the sport.
Breaking a safety rule isn’t enough on its own, because the court treats rule violations as an unavoidable risk of a contact sport. So a hard tackle generally doesn’t create a claim just because someone suffers a sports injury.
Does signing a waiver mean you can’t sue for a sports injury?
No, not necessarily. A waiver can limit your ability to recover damages, and it doesn’t automatically bar every claim.
What the waiver says and how the injury happened both matter. It may cover risks reasonably connected to the sports activity while leaving other conduct outside its scope. People often assume that once you sign a waiver, that settles it, and Illinois courts read waivers more narrowly than that. A sports injury lawyer can read it against what actually happened.
Who else can be held liable when a sports injury occurs?
Property owners and equipment manufacturers, and in narrower circumstances, the organization running the event. Defective protective gear can raise a products liability claim, and a dangerous condition at a private facility raises a question about the property owner’s duty of care and whether unsafe facilities caused the injury.
Claims against a league or association are harder than they look, because the 2008 decision extended the contact sports exception to the organizing bodies as well. Working out why the injury occurred is the first step toward knowing who can be held liable.
What if the injury happened at a park district or school facility?
Two things change: what you have to prove, and how long you have to file.
Under the Tort Immunity Act, a local public entity isn’t liable for an injury based on the condition of property intended or permitted for recreational purposes unless willful and wanton conduct caused it. A separate section applies the same standard to supervision, which is what reaches a coach or a school employee.
The deadline matters quite a bit more. A claim against a local public entity has to be filed within one year of the injury, not the two years that cover most Illinois injury claims. The Gurnee Park District runs 28 park sites, so a youth league game on one of those fields falls under both rules.
Injured playing a sport in Gurnee? Talk to Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates
Assumption of risk doesn’t answer every question. Intentional conduct, unsafe facilities, defective equipment, and inadequate supervision all reach past the ordinary risks of the game, and medical bills don’t wait.
Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates has represented injured people in Illinois for over 100 years and recovered more than $1 billion for them. If a park district is involved, that one-year deadline is the reason to call sooner rather than later. Our law firm works on a contingency fee basis, so you pay no attorney’s fees unless compensation is recovered. Call (800) 985-1819 or contact us online for a free consultation with a personal injury attorney.
