Sports Equipment Liability

When it comes to the helmet manufacturing industry, the deleterious effects on the sports equipment industry are most sharply felt. In the early 1970s there were eighteen manufacturers of football helmets. Now, after millions of dollars in lawsuits and consistently rising liability insurance costs, there are only two manufacturers of football helmets left, Riddle, Inc., and Schutt Sports Group. Frivolous lawsuits against sports equipment manufacturers are the biggest reason for the loss of rivals, but so, too, are the successful lawsuits that are often awarded to victims because of sympathetic juries more than real liability. As one critic of America’s legal system comments about the impact of frivolous or misdirected lawsuits “Jobs in some industries have been decimated. For example, lawsuits have drained the U.S. sports safety equipmen

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in lawsuits during the last half of the 1980s (Leonard, 1991, 1). However, manufacturers say the kind of injury Phillips sustained is a neck injury and that no helmet can protect a player from neck injuries short of being bolted onto their shoulder pads. Further, juries are often sympathetic to individuals who suffer such paralysis injuries, feeling sorry for a young person whose whole life is ahead of them. These kinds of lawsuits have all kinds of social ramifications. They raise product costs, 50% of the cost of a Riddle, Inc., helmet comes from the cost of liability insurance and legal costs “A football helmet for professional or college play can cost $95 to $120 and roughly half of that can be attributed to the cost of legal defense” (Sanford, 1994, 1). Lawsuits against sports equipment manufacturers and others also have an impact on society in other ways. For one, many school districts and universities are all too willing to total up budget cuts by slashing after-curricular activities and especially sports because of the potential for injuries and potential lawsuits. Recently, one school district’s principals voted unanimously to cut out sports-related after-school activities because of the potential costs of lawsuits
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1229
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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