SPORTS SCIENCE (Quality Work, No Plagarism, A++)

ARTICLE: WHY PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY SHOULD REDEFINE CONSENT TO ASSAULT AND THE INTENTIONAL FOUL IN GLADIATOR SPORTS, 29 J.L. & Health 1

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2015

Reporter 29 J.L. & Health 1 * Length: 10598 words Author: JENNIFER A. BROBST 1

Text

 [*2]  I. INTRODUCTION

Aggressive gladiator sports, 2 such as boxing, martial arts, and American football, are legally permitted to exist in part due to the consent to assault defenses in criminal and civil law. 3 However, these defenses have always been tempered by required avoidance of permanent injury and death, an unreasonable level of harm to which no one may legally consent. 4 The rules of the game reflect this, where what constitutes a foul and corresponding penalty are motivated by both fair play and player safety.

Unfortunately, in practice the intentional foul undermines this effort. 5 This tradition of bending the rules for strategic gain conflicts with the efforts of an array of new public health measures focused on player safety, particularly those aimed at preventing traumatic brain injury. However, calling for a ban on persistently dangerous sports for recreation, amateur and professional play at all ages is premature. 6 In order to preserve these sports, which provide excitement, confidence building, and health benefits, a more balanced reform measure could instead call for restrictions on the overly generous consent defense to assault in sports when intentional misconduct is involved, while continuing with ongoing efforts to improve prevention of accidental injury.

State legislatures have adopted an abundance of new mandated training provisions for youth safety in the wake of heightened public awareness of contact sports-related traumatic brain injury. 7 Within the individual governing athletic bodies are safety-related reexaminations of the rules of the game, such as defining interference or helmet  [*3]  specifications or stricter penalty provisions. 8 Without enforcement of safety related rules, however, such measures are minimally effective. If personal injury liability were to attach more readily to players who intentionally violated the rules of the game, as well as to trainers and coaches who advocate intentional foul use risking player safety, then a symbolic impact of a handful of cases could have far-reaching benefits. 9 In the most severe cases of deliberate sports injury, greater judicial willingness to apply criminal penalties would achieve a similar effect. 10

Gamesmanship could improve while retaining the longstanding personal and community benefits of a long tradition of exciting American gladiator sports. In basketball, for example, apart from the risk of injury, intentional foul strategies have been deemed highly disruptive to the enjoyment of the sport:

But why are [free throws] a part of the game [of basketball]? Free throws were created as a deterrent to fouls, not as a supplementary skill test to determine the best team. Free throws exist to prevent defenders from beating the Holy Hell out of prospective scorers on every possession. Free throws and the fouling system (including the six-foul limit) are simply deterrents against overly physical play.

… In a perfect world, there would be no fouls and there would be no reason for free throws. Watching actual offenses face actual defenses is way more fun than watching anyone shoot uncontested set shots. 11

Achieving success in sports through skill, bravery, and strength within the rules of the game is gamesmanship; not strategically subverting the rules, which is essentially cheating and inviting reckless and unpredictable dangerous conduct.

One of the primary goals of legal reform to improve gladiator sport safety should be to avoid and provide redress for intentional acts causing a significant risk of death or serious bodily injury; that is, the current, but inconsistently enforced, standard for  [*4]  liability. 12 For some sports, such as boxing, one might assume that if one could not consent to a serious risk of traumatic brain injury, then the entire sport must be inevitably banned. But as will be shown below, existing and improved policies and laws related to training, monitoring, and rule enforcement could influence a shift to a more reasonable level of risk in the most dangerous of sports. This approach would improve informed consent, respect the autonomy of choice to participate, and avoid the need to eliminate the longstanding and valued American tradition of dangerous but exciting gladiator and non-gladiator sports.

This article will consider in Part II below the status and influence of public health research regarding the safety risks of gladiator sports, and the field's tendency to neglect the sports' recognized medical and mental health benefits. In Part III, the historical trends in judicial interpretation of the scope of the criminal consent defense and civil doctrines of a privilege of consent to assault and assumption of the risk in the sports context will be addressed. Finally, Part IV will assert the need to reform the civil and criminal defenses to intentional misconduct in sports through agency, judicial, and statutory reform, for the purpose of eliminating the strategic use of the intentional foul to better enforce the new medically informed safety regulations and sports rules, while protecting the tradition of a wide array of gladiator sports.

II . SEEING RED: HOW PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY HAS NEGLECTED TO BALANCE THE HEALTH RISKS AND BENEFITS OF GLADIATOR SPORTS 13

In developing public policy regarding the safety of players in more dangerous sports, the public and professional conversation to date has not focused on a balance of health risks and benefits, because the arguably unacceptable level of risk has overshadowed the conversation. 14 An additional layer of analysis requires recognition of the role of individual autonomy in providing legal consent; i.e., whether an adult should be able to consent to be punched in the abdomen or head, knowing all of the attendant medical risks. 15 Of course, for some, the law has established a lesser right to consent due to vulnerability factors such as age of minority or intellectual capability. 16 As public health research continues to advance, revealing a new understanding of neurological harm and organ failure from severe repetitive contact, the law must take these advances into account. In doing so, other competing legal and social concepts must also be taken into account, including an understanding of the role of natural human aggression and the legal system's measured tolerance of it.

 [*5]  A. Research on Human Aggression and Self-Restraint

Legal authorities have long attempted to regulate violent human conduct, using authorized violence and restraint to do so. 17 The legal approach to use violence to curb some, but not all, violence reflects the political and social acceptance that humanity is violent by nature, but also capable of self-regulation and checking of violent impulses. Gladiator sports, such as wrestling and boxing, originate from traditions in every culture since recorded history to exemplify power 18 and the need for strong warriors in the interests of social survival. 19 The persistent prevalence of violent conduct in society is indisputable, 20 but is the assumption that violent character is a heritable trait correct? Should a parent blame herself for poor parenting the first time her infant bites or scratches someone?

In the 1960s, a theory popularized by Konrad Lorenz hypothesized that aggression is an adaptive trait of all animals in their fight for survival. 21 In the face of continued societal violent crime and warfare affecting every continent, learning the skill to physically defend oneself and others is no doubt justifiable. Women were legally permitted to enter the professional boxing ring in 1993, the year after professional boxer Mike Tyson was arrested for raping a young woman. 22 As one advocate for women's participation in gladiator sports argues: "Women and girls in the 1990s, even more than in the 1970s, needed the self-defense skills that boxing had always claimed to provide in order to protect themselves from men -- even boxers like  [*6]  Tyson." 23 Social learning theory, therefore, has utility to explain the degree of human aggression expressed, either repressing or enhancing the innate aggressive tendency, sometimes in very specific situations. 24 Research data from the 1930s to the 1980s by the National Hockey League (NHL) has found that penalties and player aggression increase in relation to the number of times any two teams have played against each other in a given season, each learning to engage the other more strategically. 25

Biological research continues to assert that humans are born aggressive, with some eventual environmental influences on both aggression and self-restraint. 26 Men are biologically more physically aggressive than women, with one debatable argument asserting that boys' testosterone development during pregnancy "makes them more aggressive for the rest of their lives." 27 However, this comparative fact does not mean that women are not aggressive, but simply that they are somewhat less physically aggressive than men.

The connection between testosterone levels and aggression is far from conclusive, however, with studies indicating directly conflicting results. 28 Nevertheless, among men as a whole, some research indicates that higher levels of testosterone are found among violent offenders, antisocial military recruits, and the most aggressive athletes in contact sports. 29 Variations in natural aggression and impulsivity among any group of men or women could be caused by inherited DNA controlling serotonin levels, or by conditions in the womb, such as malnourishment or exposure to tobacco or alcohol, causing aggression associated with ADHD or fetal alcohol syndrome. 30 By the age of the mid to late 20s, the prefrontal cortex becomes fully formed, allowing for greater self-restraint against ongoing impulsive tendencies. 31

Culture and social influence play a part as well. One of the organizers of the World Finals rodeo championships explained that many girl riders dropped out in the older age groups, usually at their parents' requests, but not before they exhibited equal  [*7]  determination. He described the success of his seven-year-old daughter as an anathema to her male competitors: "The boys hate . . . losing to a girl. But little girls develop faster than little boys, and Shayne is fearless, man. She likes rubbing their noses in it." 32 Women have also been found to exhibit significantly more indirect aggression than men in the form of verbal and social aggression, isolation, and manipulation. 33

A degree of learned behavior impacting levels of aggression is confirmed through years of research, identifying lack of empathy and bullying behavior in youth who themselves are treated this way at home. 34 Self-regulation of violent behavior is epitomized by the state's ability to regulate contact sports and trust the athletes to abide by the rules of the game. Gladiator sports offer a means for player and spectator to more safely express violent tendencies in a controlled environment:

Sports institutionalizes calculated violence without loss of self-control, while spectators have the opportunity to vicariously enjoy the excitement of contest without the actual violence of earlier spectacles such as gladiatorial struggle. Thus, 'we no longer regard it as a Sunday entertainment to see people hanged, quartered, broken in the wheel. We watch football, not gladiatorial contests.' 35

In contrast to a street fight without rules, which often involves fighters continuing to feel animus for each other well after the fight, athletes in the most aggressive and dangerous sports agree to abide by safety rules and to end the fight with a handshake and other expressions of respect. This contrast in tone, structure, and state authorization have led criminologists to argue that organized contact sports are less de-humanizing than unregulated aggression outside the bounds of the law. 36

Anthropologist Magid Shihade writes a poignant analysis of a soccer game in 1981 between two neighboring Palestinian Arab teams in Galilee, in which a moment of sectarian Arab-Christian violence broke out between fans during the game, but the  [*8]  game continued to the end without further incident. 37 Once the game ended, mass violence broke out among the fans, including the throwing of a hand grenade into the crowd. 38 In contrast, Shihade chastises state sanctioned or at least state neglect in permitting sectarian violence to erupt, violence of a nature designed to demoralize the opponent: "Fomenting chaos, whether controllable or not, can never be a healthy recipe for peace, prosperity, and security from a realistic perspective and is abhorrent morally." 39 Here the crowd demonstrated the ability to choose when to be aggressive, while the mutually respectful structure of the soccer game required there to be no violence among players during the game itself.

Some have noted that humanity's desire for exposure to "surrogate bloodshed", through enjoyment of violent sports, films, or video games, cushions the realization that life will come to an end eventually, particularly in an increasingly sanitized and sheltered society. 40 The gift of humanity's awareness of its own mortality is "the idea of death, which ultimately motivates us to live with greater passion and intensity knowing that our time is so precious." 41 Thus, it is not only mutual aggression that is experienced through vicarious violence, but a desire to live fully, with freedom and excitement. Most legal scholars would understandably focus on the serious health risks rather than the benefits of gladiator sports. 42 In public health policy and law, no legal tenet defines or places a value on such amorphous, but vital, traits as the capacity for excitement, love, or joy in an otherwise dangerous activity. 43 As will be discussed below, public health concerns regarding the serious risks of gladiator sports have unfairly overshadowed considerations of the benefits of such sports in public policy discussions. In addition, contrary to logic, intentional misconduct violating the rules of the game and endangering other players, should warrant much greater public policy attention.

 [*9]  B. The Tenuous Influence of Public Health Research on Sports Policy

Despite the obvious risks of most contact sports, few sports have been permanently banned by American legislatures, other than deliberately lethal sports such as dueling or fencing without protection. 44 This is due in part to doctrines of consent to assault and battery in criminal and civil law, permitting consent to a risk of a lesser degree of injury. 45 In turn, public health police power intervention, to curb an identified widespread and serious risk of violence, is tempered by the protected interest of personal autonomy; that is, the consenting adult's choice to engage in dangerous activities. 46 New developments in public health research, particularly with regard to concussion and traumatic brain injury, 47 are drawing attention to gladiator sports that arguably may now fall within a sufficiently serious level of risk to warrant government intervention.

1. Risks of Serious Injury in Gladiator and Non-Gladiator Sports

To understand the relative risks of injury in gladiator sports, it is useful to consider them in the context of sports injuries generally. Common categories of sports injury may be defined by their cause, for example: direct injury (external contact, e.g., hit by a hockey stick or contact with the ground in a fall); indirect injury (internal injury, e.g., torn ACL or back strain); and overuse injury (repetitive injury, e.g., tendonitis). 48 In addition, sports injuries may be categorized by the body part injured, including a hard tissue injury (impacting bone and teeth) or a soft tissue injury (impacting nonhard tissue body parts, such as the brain, skin or other organs). 49 Most sports injuries, such as a sprained wrist in wrestling or a cut lip in rugby, would not fit the definition of serious injury warranting legal restrictions on an adult's choice to participate in the sport. 50

Clearly, not all gladiator sports are equally dangerous. Some of the most aggressive sports result in a significant number of minor lacerations and bruises, but surprisingly few instances of death. For example, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) permits  [*10]  head blows and knock outs, like boxing; and yet, in the last 20 years, MMA has seen common minor injuries from cuts, but only eight recorded deaths including several in unregulated bouts. 51 Professional boxing, however, recorded approximately 339 mortalities between 1950 and 2007, with a significant decline after 1983. 52 MMA today is highly structured and regulated, with shorter and fewer rounds than boxing. 53 Boxing, however, has single fighters in much longer, multiple rounds, who potentially have to fight for over an hour in the ring. 54

In fact, the largest number of sports-related serious injuries and deaths occur not in combat sports, but in solo recreational activities for personal fitness rather than competition. 55 In 2014, among youth aged 15-24, general exercise equipment caused over 245,000 reported injuries, while bicycle riding caused approximately 198,000, football 158,000, basketball 94,000, hockey 22,000, and boxing 7,000. 56 The highest number of sports-related deaths are from bicycle riding (head injuries from collisions with motor vehicles), followed by drowning while swimming, and skiing. 57 Many more marathon runners have died of race-related cardiac arrest than athletes who have played gladiator sports. 58 An even higher risk of death occurs for those in 5K races,  [*11]  rather than marathon races, possibly due to the lack of training and preparation and the existing ill health or obesity among short distance runners. 59 Nevertheless, in both MMA and marathon running, one a gladiator sport and the other a solo recreational sport, the risk of death is present, albeit low. Arguably, there is no inherent significant risk of immediate death warranting a ban of either sport. None of today's legally sanctioned sports is comparable to humanity's history of deadly medieval jousting or the gladiator sports among the enslaved in pre-Colombian or Roman arenas. 60

Then how should policy makers measure the risk of dangerous sports to the individual athlete? By number of deaths per year? By rate of serious injury in the sport? 61 The law provides no answer, and should not defer to a medical or politically charged public health leadership that has yet to reach an internal consensus on the topic of cause or rate of risk. In terms of rate alone, some research indicates that football is most dangerous for men and cheerleading most dangerous for women in terms of the risk of catastrophic soft tissue brain injury in college athletics. 62 As of 2013, the risk of catastrophic brain injury among youth appears to be greater among ice hockey players and cheerleaders than football players. 63

Naturally, if wide discretion is provided to public health policy makers, then the answer to the question of how to measure an acceptable level of risk is highly influenced by public perception and tolerance of risk. The rate of medical risk is not always the defining factor in a governmental call for restricting a dangerous sport. The cultural and moral attitudes toward violence and aggression, irrespective of risk of injury, are also at play. The 1997 Tyson vs. Holyfield WBA Heavyweight bout, for example, in which Tyson bit off Holyfield's ear, did not create a lethal risk, nor was it permitted under the rules. Nevertheless, the public perception of boxing as an unacceptably dangerous and brutal sport gained considerable traction, despite the fact that bicycle riding or running in a 5K annually kills far more people.

With respect to the government's right to intervene in the interests of public health and greater medical knowledge, 64 identifying an unacceptable level of risk should consider both numbers and rate of injury, as well as the seriousness of the injury at risk. For example, promoters of bull riding tout it as the most dangerous of all sports, at least by rate of serious injuries per competitor. 65 Marketing the sport by  [*12]  highlighting such a risk to riders may not be wise, considering that the current movement toward increased legal intervention to ensure public health and safety is highly focused on seriousness of harm as well as rate of injury.

Also, rates of injury for a particular sport may not remain static over time. Therefore, monitoring and identifying trends in sports practices and levels of dangerousness should be key in public health research. Here, bull riding again provides a useful example. Rodeo bulls are now bred to be much fiercer than in previous decades, with the income from breeding for violence greater than the income from spectators viewing the bulls being ridden. 66 Some professional football players have been allegedly paid by their teams to deliberately injure opposing players. 67 Observers argue that commercialization has resulted in more intense competition and risk in many professional sports, eroding the joy of the sport and the benefits of camaraderie, fair play, and gamesmanship. 68 Thus, it is no surprise that the improved public health research on concussions in contact sports has influenced public health policy makers to more closely monitor inherent and foreseeable risks in professional football and boxing, or heading the ball in soccer, to attempt to take restrictive legislative action in the face of massive commercial success.

As discussed by many scholars and researchers, particularly in the last decade, the risk of concussion and traumatic brain injury from impacts to the head in some gladiator sports is justifiably concerning because of the risk of permanent, irreversible injury from a single hard blow or repeated minor blows. 69 Once injured, the brain is not easily able to repair itself, and secondary brain injuries can develop from brain swelling, displacing other brain tissue and injuring the brain stem. 70 Research has indicated that 10% of cases of a single acute brain injury are irreversible, but repeated traumas significantly increase such risks. 71 Public health policy makers would do well to note that traumatic brain injury, from all causes such as motor vehicle collisions, warfare, and sports, is now the leading cause of death and disability in young adults. 72  [*13]  In addition, the residual cognitive and behavioral effects present tremendous challenges for the traumatic brain injury survivors and their families. 73

But here lies the risk of overgeneralization, for neurologists and neuropathologists caution policy makers to avoid assuming that the risks associated with mild traumatic brain injury in the sports context are the same as for other dangerous impacts, such as motor vehicle collisions. 74 "Sports concussion subjects are younger, healthier, and more likely to minimize complaints post injury"; thus, research specific to sports concussion may not easily compare to other forms of mTBI (mild traumatic brain injury, including concussion). 75 Unexpected impacts to the head from criminal assault, car accidents, or slips and falls, for less fit persons without any protective headgear, logically tend to result in greater injury than most sports concussions. 76 Thus, the concern remains, but the national conversation on traumatic brain injury should take care to present a focus on sports specific and age specific risks.

Public health intervention also needs to consider the degree of research consensus or lack of consensus in the field. "At present, there is no single set of generally endorsed or utilized diagnostic criteria for mTBI," which interferes with researchers' ability to compare studies of incidence and severity rates. 77 For example, mTBI is "arbitrarily" defined as exhibiting posttraumatic amnesia (PTA) for less than 24 hours, while in moderate and severe traumatic brain injury it may last for days or weeks. 78 This causes uncertainty in making timing decisions on admitting injured persons to hospital for observation. 79 Neurological research specific to sports concussions, which should help educate policy makers addressing the risks of gladiator sports, is clearly still in development.

While it is understood that the majority of those suffering from concussion and mTBI will recover, no consensus has emerged on best practices in mental health treatment for the condition. 80 New return-to-play guidelines to avoid exacerbating concussion symptoms also lack data on the long-term effects of these policies and whether they do, in fact, reduce injury. 81 Research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with repeated head trauma in high contact sports, currently provides "no clear consensus  [*14]  on the number of events or severity of each trauma that is required to cause CTE, although some authors suggest it can occur after a single TBI." 82 Due to the progressive and severe symptoms of CTE, including disorientation, headaches, violent outbursts, and motor functioning impairments, studies have been limited as some with CTE have tragically died an early death from suicide, accidents, or drug overdoses. 83 Also, studies related to adult professional players may not be applicable to the more limited duration of youth sports activities. 84

Different sports are more likely to risk impact to different parts of the head. For example, the location of brain injuries impacts resulting trauma symptoms and diagnoses, such as the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 85 With respect to complex PTSD, researchers would have difficulty determining whether brain injury symptoms of depression or excessive aggression among athletes were caused by a prior traumatic event, such as childhood abuse, or a violent sports contact, or both. 86 Overall, research results on traumatic brain injury risks in gladiator sports are certainly concerning and worthy of the public attention they receive. This is particularly true for youth whose brains are in a stage of rapid development and who lack the ability to provide lawful informed consent to the risks they face on the field. However, public health research still leaves numerous questions as to causality and treatment, matters which should directly impact the course of future legislative and administrative reform for player safety.

2. Legal Doctrines Justifying Public Health Intervention for Gladiator Sport Safety

Based on gains in public health research, the question arises regarding the extent to which the state should respond and legally enforce greater safety measures to protect players. In general, pursuant to state police power, public health policy and law intervene when the interests of the many outweigh individual interests and rights. 87 In athletics, a public health focus is often warranted when there are  [*15]  documented risks to spectators or other third parties, such as a lack of netting or fencing behind home plate in baseball. 88

The dangers to the players themselves present a more tenuous link to a justification for government restriction in the interests of public safety, because the players consent to the risk in a structured environment with safety precautions, invoking their right to personal autonomy. 89 As will be explained below, 90 as long as there is no breach of the peace, adults have a right to legally consent to assault and battery and the risk of non-lethal injury. This is the case in sports, sex, medical care, employment, and any other lawful activity. In contrast, youth sports present a greater justification for public health intervention, based not only on state police power and its role in protecting the public interest, but on the parens patriae doctrine requiring state protection of its most vulnerable individual citizens, particularly when not in the direct care of their parents or legal guardians. 91

Based on these concepts, if public health research unveils greater individual safety risks to individual athletes than previously known, the support for governmental use of its police power to restrict or ban the sport may weigh heavily in favor of protecting youth, but may mean little to restricting adult sports. Indeed, even if universal risks of a premature death from traumatic brain injury were invoked to ban boxing or football, the police power of state legislatures should not support the ban's infringement on personal autonomy to play, because the risk would not be sufficiently immediate or urgent. 92 Thus, to curb the health risks of violent sports, what public  [*16]  health officials and well-meaning politicians are left with are often public awareness campaigns that do not infringe on individual autonomy. The same barriers to more direct government intervention have been seen in anti-smoking and anti-obesity awareness campaigns, rather than bans on the activities of smoking or eating unhealthy foods. 93

In addition to the need to demonstrate an urgent and widespread public risk, public health intervention, with its limited resources, involves consideration of trends in public attitude, tradition and political choices. As with the complaint against the tobacco companies for hiding the dangers of smoking, when everyone knew there was a cancer risk, 94 the public has long known of the dangers of traumatic brain injury from a myriad of sports, such as rugby, boxing, cheerleading, skateboarding, and downhill skiing. For example, with respect to boxing, since 1928 when the term "punch-drunk" described boxers who were unsteady and moved slowly, the medical profession has documented boxers' high risk of dementia pugilistica, now known as chronic traumatic brain damage with connections to dementia and Parkinson's disease. 95

The risk of overly aggressive and emotionally unbalanced players was also historically well known. Sports psychology emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, testing prospective athletes for intelligence, reaction time, and personality traits, including the ability to control emotions in stressful situations. 96 No policy maker could fail to understand that many gladiator sports carried a risk of brain damage from impacts to the head, with certain players showing a higher risk of inflicting such injury.

Nevertheless, the primary source of litigation against sports bodies recently is that they should have done more to protect players against concussion. According to one attorney who filed a 2011 lawsuit against the NCAA: "The NCAA, for years, turned a blind eye to the concussion problem and never addressed the issue." 97 While the NCAA Manual had provisions to inform players about identifying concussion and removal from play, some argued that it should have added limits on contact in practice, screening for brain injuries, specific return to play guidelines related to brain trauma, and "most importantly, there are no consequences if a member school fails to come up with a plan and enforce it." 98

 [*17]  The early 20th century practice of personality testing to screen for emotionallybalanced "championship material" players has been suggested to be unlikely to occur in today's overly aggressive climate: "Nor, given the frequent misconduct by professional football players, would most coaches agree with [their] emphasis on character." 99 Such overgeneralization is perhaps unfair, but not without its examples, as seen in Green v. Pro Football, Inc., addressing a claim of liability against a professional football team for an alleged bounty program, paying players to deliberately injure opposing players. 100 With today's improved brain research, pretesting of professional athletes for high risks of traumatic brain injury could include gathering reliable mental health information on whether the athlete has a history of mood disorders and alcohol or drug abuse, because these are risk factors for more severe symptoms of postconcussion posttraumatic amnesia, agitation and aggression. 101

While NFL athletes have agents and union representation, college athletes have been reliant on the protections the NCAA is willing to provide, 102 an organization formed in part from the early 1900s in response to concerns by President Theodore Roosevelt to "gruesome injuries and deaths" occurring in college football. 103 President Roosevelt himself, however, along with many other Ivy League students of his generation, was proud of being an elite college boxer. 104 Thus it is clear that a certain degree of selective disdain, if not hypocrisy, accompanies the discussion of whether it is really the level of violence or injury that creates disfavor regarding a particular sport, or other cultural considerations, such as race, gender, or class constructs.

The relationship between Americans and boxing has been a complicated mixture of enthusiasm and revulsion. At times prizefighting in any form has been officially banned, but the lure of the ring has remained sufficiently  [*18]  strong to maintain at least minimal interest in the sport, and boxing's popularity and legality have always reemerged. 105

Despite greater governmental willingness today to protect players from concussion through regulation and public health policy, that commitment pays selective attention to only certain sports and may be relatively ineffective even for those selected.

C. Recent State Regulatory Measures to Increase Safety in Gladiator Sports

The highly regulated nature of official gladiator sports supports both monitoring and regulation reform as needed. Although the media focus on regulating the safety of gladiator sports tends to address sports like boxing or football, many other combat sports are regulated. For example, Minnesota's State Office of Combative Sports specifically defines combatant as "an individual who employs the act of attack and defense as a boxer, tough person, or mixed martial artist while engaged in a combative sport." 106 Given a need to regulate an expanded public interest in a variety of martial arts and mixed martial arts, a 2015 bill in the Minnesota legislature sought to amend the above definition of combatant to include martial artist, and to add a provision specifically defining martial artist as follows:

Subd. 4h. Martial art. "Martial art" means a variety of weaponless disciplines of combat or self-defense that utilize physical skill and coordination, and are practiced as combat sports. The disciplines include, but as not limited to, Wing Chun, kickboxing, Tae kwon do, savate, karate, Muay Thai, sanshou, Jiu Jitsu, judo, ninjitsu, kung fu, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, wrestling, grappling, tai chi, and other weaponless martial arts disciplines. 107

Among the regulated sports, primary safety concerns vary, with anti-concussion legislation taking a clear lead. The development of anti-concussion legislation in the United States is well documented. 108 In brief, in 2009 Washington State became the  [*19]  first state to legislate measures to decrease the incidence of concussions in youth contact sports. 109 By 2013, all 50 states had passed some form of anti-concussion legislation. Most require mandatory additional training on concussion detection, removal from play, and parental consent to return. The version created by Washington provided extensive medically informed policy language:

(1)(a) Concussions are one of the most commonly reported injuries in children and adolescents who participate in sports and recreational activities. The centers for disease control and prevention estimates that as many as three million nine hundred thousand sports-related and recreationrelated concussions occur in the United States each year. A concussion is caused by a blow or motion to the head or body that causes the brain to move rapidly inside the skull. The risk of catastrophic injuries or death are significant when a concussion or head injury is not properly evaluated and managed.

(b) Concussions are a type of brain injury that can range from mild to severe and can disrupt the way the brain normally works. Concussions can occur in any organized or unorganized sport or recreational activity and can result from a fall or from players colliding with each other, the ground, or with obstacles. Concussions occur with or without loss of consciousness, but the vast majority occurs without loss of consciousness.

(c) Continuing to play with a concussion or symptoms of head injury leaves the young athlete especially vulnerable to greater injury and even death. The legislature recognizes that, despite having generally recognized return to play standards for concussion and head injury, some affected youth athletes are prematurely returned to play resulting in actual or potential physical injury or death to youth athletes in the state of Washington. 110

In 2014, Ingram v. U.S. became the first appellate decision applying the Lystedt Law in Washington. 111 The federal district court held as a matter of law that the defendant high school coaches and administrators were not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the head injury to plaintiff, a high school football player; an injury he received during spring training, which may have led to stroke due to an embolism. 112 According to the court, the medical evidence of causation was inconclusive and the coaches had fully complied with all requirements of the Lystedt  [*20]  Law, including obtaining a signed medical authorization to play from the plaintiff and his parent before play. 113

To reduce brain injury among athletes, most in the medical field are recommending pre and post-season cognitive assessments, improved sports equipment, and training in the identification of concussions. 114 PET scans of players would provide a baseline on their cognitive status before play should there be a need to assess the presence and impact of concussion and traumatic brain injury later, or determine the need for treatment and the readiness for return to play. 115 Also, engineering advances in the use of safety equipment, including gold-standard SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) technology, is recommended by those in sports medicine. SLAM is a robotic mapping technology. 116

Many are skeptical regarding whether this new array of anti-concussion public health legislation, influenced by medical and technological advances, will be effective. In a study of 35 of the 42 states that had enacted anti-concussion legislation for youth sports, the authors noted that "uniformity 'on the books' obscures a tremendous amount of variation of the laws 'in practice.'" 117 The focus is on secondary prevention, not primary prevention, seeking to avoid exacerbation of existing concussive symptoms and postconcussive syndrome. One of the reasons for this secondary prevention focus is that preventing concussion through improved helmet design is impossible. 118 According to one of the creators of the ImPACT concussion test: "The brain is still moving around within the skull when somebody has a concussion, and that's what causes them . . . .We can't put a helmet directly on the brain." 119 Other proposed measures for better prevention of head trauma in youth sports, for example, include adopting regulations limiting contact during practices and  [*21]  training 120 and requiring increased monitoring of changes in safety equipment standards. 121

Thus, some advocate banning gladiator sports, such as full contact football or boxing, from all youth sports. "Unlike other sports, you can't make football significantly safer for the brain without changing the nature of the game (e.g., banning blocking and tackling)." 122 In short, no public health educational campaign will change the fact that a player in a gladiator sport may be hit repeatedly in the head hundreds of times in a single season. Middle and high school sports teams could engage in less aggressive forms of adult gladiator sports to develop the necessary skill and ability among players to play full contact later. Adult MMA fighters serve as an example, with many able to build upon their skills learned as youth in less aggressive martial arts forms. However, legislators may not be effective in protecting youth if the ban on gladiator sports focuses on public school athletic programs alone. Private after school and club sports offered to minor athletes may be the most competitive and aggressive of all.

Granted, most gladiator sports are highly regulated, requiring licensed supervision to maintain health and safety standards of both players and spectators. Nevertheless, if those in charge neglect their duties to ensure player safety and curb unauthorized violence in the ring or on the field, they risk not only liability in tort, 123 but revocation of licensure depending on the state jurisdiction. 124

However, these regulatory methods provide no saving grace. "Despite the use of protective helmets, one in eight amateur boxing matches leads to concussion." 125 Moreover, regarding psychometric tests and brain imaging, "[b]y the time changes show up, it's too late." 126 Acute brain injury is often due to head trauma, causing immediate irreversible damage according to neurologists: "once a neuron is lost, very little can be done because regeneration in the central nervous system is poor and disorganized." 127 Therefore, facing the reality that training on concussion detection, brain imaging, and equipment changes make little difference, some neuroscientists have increased their advocacy to ban certain gladiator sports, particularly boxing, "this  [*22]  embarrassing remnant of our primitive evolutionary past." 128 Of course non-combat sports, such as ice-skating or horse-back riding, involve even more serious risks of injury, which has led one neurologist to muse: "If sports were banned, all our [emergency room] waiting lists would disappear overnight." 129

D. Recognition of the Physical, Social, and Mental Health Benefits of Gladiator Sports

Despite the fact that competitive sports, and gladiator sports specifically, require some of the most demanding training and physical fitness, the recent public and professional discussion of combat sports has generally ignored these and other benefits, focusing primarily on safety risks and the perceived immorality of violence. Gladiator sports are not inherently violent, just as winning is not inherently violent.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of "violence" is first given a negative connotation in terms of the mental state of the actor: "The deliberate exercise of physical force against a person, property, etc.; physically violent behaviour or treatment; (Law) the unlawful exercise of physical force, intimidation by the exhibition of such force. Formerly also: +the abuse of power or authority to persecute or oppress (obs.)." 130 Even when the term violence is used without malice, such as the violence of a natural disaster, the definition imbues the word with a negative connotation focusing on resulting harm: "2. Great strength or power of a natural force or physical action, esp. when destructive or damaging; violent motion or effect." 131 Yet, there is no word in the English language that captures the positive and historically revered concept of physical aggression in sports. Combat is associated with war and harm. While the term force in law is not necessarily negative, it does not really capture the interpersonal nature of aggressive contact sports.

Nevertheless, athletes in gladiator sports recognize and promote the benefits of their sports. For example, in addition to the physical training involved in a contact sport such as basketball, one might expect to hear sports advocates identify associated traits of self-discipline, self-respect, work ethic, determination, and leadership and motivation of others. Indeed, in studying over 400 top-level female executives in five countries, only 3% had never played sports and over half had played sports at the collegiate level. 132 Olympic gold medalist swimmer and sportscaster, Donna de Varona, explained:

If you try out for a basketball team but quit in the middle of the first game, or if you choose not to pass the ball to your talented teammate because you don't like her, or if you are unwilling to spend extra hours to work on a weakness, you aren't going to get very far. Sports teaches fundamentals  [*23]  for success and that is why both men and women executives like to hire athletes. 133

In the most aggressive contact sports, such as boxing or mixed martial arts, the athletes promoting their sport highlight the traits of self-awareness, bravery, and the conquering of fear. These sports are not hobbies:

You have to commit to boxing. You can't do it when the mood takes you. Boxing is not like skiing or scuba diving - it is not something you can do once a year on holiday. Boxing is not even like football or tennis - you can't do it on the odd sunny day in the park. Boxing - even at the strictly amateur, recreational level - requires dedication, discipline and grit.

And here is what is special about boxing training - your physical fitness is just the start. Boxing is really about your mental fitness. Because boxing makes you calmer. Boxing teaches you control. 134

Faced with the reduction in athleticism of American youth, and the rise of morbid obesity, 135 the national conversation may actually minimize the physical health risks of sports generally, other than to address concussions in gladiator sports. In fact, due to the physical stress of higher metabolisms, research has shown that top athletes are likely to live shorter lives than those who regularly engage in more moderate exercise. 136 Yet realistically weighing the physical risks and benefits of sports does not dispatch with the debate, for mental health benefits continue to sustain the encouragement of sports from a young age to build character. 137 Through learning and abiding by the rules of the game, "[p]hysical play provides a context for the exploration of children's morality." 138 While acknowledging that organized sports do not appeal to all youth, numerous research studies have linked sports participation with a wide array of positive results for youth at risk of delinquency, including  [*24]  physical health, mental health, and social wellbeing. 139 As one young man in custody at a youth detention center in Great Britain expressed:

When I was in school an' that I was quite lazy. But ever since I've come in here I've been doing lots of sport an' stuff. It gives me a real buzz, running about an' that. . . . Boxing is the main that that made me do it . . . instead of just doin' weights . . . 'cos they all [other residents] wanna do weights and just get big, but it's about stayin' fit on the inside; . . . All that running and training. It's just pushin' me to the limit. 140

Several research studies since the 1980s have shown an inverse relationship between the learning of lethal physical skills in martial skills with the incidence of physical aggression outside of the sport in daily life. 141 In fact, martial artists have been found to "become increasingly less aggressive as they advance through the ranks," when the training involves the traditional philosophical components of inner peace and harmony. 142 In contrast, newer forms of Tae Kwon Do, eliminating the philosophical components of nonviolence, have been shown to create a significant increase in aggressiveness. 143

Excessive and inappropriate applications of these goals of aggressive learning "have been linked to a pattern of attitudes and behaviors that include violence, homophobia, sexism, and drug abuse." 144 Indeed, the criminal activity of athletes from high school to professional sports has been the focus of numerous debates on causal factors for societal aggression. 145 The evidence of a link to criminality with more violent sports is thin and perhaps more media generated perception than reality. 146 While studies have shown that NFL players have relatively low arrest rates for violence, 40% of American born NBA players in 2001-2002 were found to have had criminal complaints filed against them for a serious crime, primarily involving persons who "tell them no," such as women or law enforcement officers. 147 College and professional athletic departments excusing the criminal misconduct of their  [*25]  players, hiring attorneys for players, and colluding with prosecutors remains a concern. 148

Yet evidence tends to support the argument that the sports environment does not inherently create positive or negative character, but reinforces and heightens existing desired character traits in individual athletes. 149 Coaches, trainers, managers, and team captains directing the character lessons learned through sports foster the character traits they choose to present. 150 For example, when college athletic departments insert themselves into the criminal investigations of their star players, and local prosecutors collude with them to dismiss charges, the message to athletes on desired characteristics is reprehensible. 151 Victim witnesses reported being intimidated by collegiate programs and players, team lawyers are appointed for the players before they even request an attorney, and the high national profile of the teams was reported to influence prosecutorial decision-making. 152 Use of a particular sports team ethos by those in charge may encourage, for example, respect for others or a dangerous sense of entitlement resulting in brutal hazing of other students. 153

 [*26]  When athletes are encouraged by coaches to use illegal techniques like tripping or holding another player, this doesn't promote following the rules of the game, or of society. Character traits -- positive and negative -- acquired on the football field carry over to other settings. Football can promote learned dishonesty. The Josephson Institute in a 2007 survey found that school athletes are more likely than non-athletes to cheat in their school work. The most prolific cheaters were football players. 154

If this research on the character building potential of gladiator sports, or any sports for that matter, is accurate, then the violent or nonviolent nature of the sport itself does not greatly impact the individual's moral character. Rather, it is the way the athletes are treated by others in the sport that influences the character of players. 155 Subsequent to the enactment of Title IX, the gender divide in how sports build character is more apparent with more women competing across the country. 156 Some argue that women and girls who play sports appear to continue to reap the traditional benefits of athletics, without negative risks attendant to success among male athletes, in part because they are treated with greater respect by their management in the sport. 157 Legislators, litigators, and policy makers who have the power to hold athletic management accountable for fostering misconduct in players should address this first, before blaming the purported violence of gladiator sports as inherently brutal and uncivilized.

Public health policy will naturally balance any conflict between the interests of the individual and the public, but it is never an even balance. The core interests of the herd must, by necessity, win if there is a significant public risk, whether related to interests in health or social order, or to a lesser extent to morality. As will be shown below, 158 the legal approach to curbing safety risks in contact sports has been meek at best, deferent to public policy initiatives from those outside the legislature and courthouse.

Gladiator sports provide one of the relatively rare examples of moral focus in public health law, as the safety risks and benefits of the sports have not received the usual balanced review. Without social science research available on the subject, it is easy to speculate on whether the American public's moral attachment to violence in sports is in any way reflected on a grander scale with the public's attitude towards the violence of conflict on the global political scene. Sociologists have connected the reduced level of warfare in the 18th century between nation states in Europe to the  [*27]  emergence and popularity of what was termed "sports" in the West, essentially a safe and controlled expression of conflict. 159

Today, is it a coincidence that the United States media has been willing, finally, to discuss and possibly address a long known risk of concussion in football at a time when Americans are weary of being in one of the longest running military conflicts in American history? The United States has been fighting in the Middle East for over 14 years, since October 7, 2001, approximately five years longer than the Vietnam War. 160 Or is it that soldiers returning with high rates of traumatic brain injury allowed the medical community to create greater public awareness of the risks of concussion generally? 161 According to some in neurology: "Increased dissemination of information about TBI in the media has been related to the high incidence of TBI in soldiers during the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the proliferation of studies on the acute and long-term effects of concussion (i.e., another term for mild TBI) sustained by athletes while engaged in contact sports." 162

The American public's acceptance of blood sports has swelled and waned over time, from a ban on boxing in the 1920s to the rise of mixed martial arts today. If anything, the mental health risks of a sedentary society, with high attendant rates of depression and anxiety, call for promotion of the mental health benefits of sports, including the courage and tempering of rage taught in gladiator sports.

What happens when kids box? Fat kids lose weight. Bullies learn humility. Girls are empowered. The weak become stronger. The timid find courage. The wild kids learn control. The unhealthy get fit. And everybody learns that boxing has no room for anger. 163

Some assert that even untempered rage on the sports field is not necessarily harmful or against public policy, depending on the rules and structure of the sport. 164

The question arises then -- what is the value of a life well lived? The law should not engage in a determination of this value, but should enforce the right to autonomy over this decision of those with the capacity to decide. In short, in a civilized society one should have the right to seek an exciting, but possibly shorter life, or a long but uneventful life, or something in between.

 [*28]  III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CRIMINAL CONSENT DEFENSE AND CIVIL PRIVILEGE TO ASSAULT AND BATTERY IN GLADIATOR SPORTS

The limits of the consent defense in gladiator sports vary by jurisdiction, but its common law roots reflect the same approach in the United States and other British commonwealth nations, such as Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand: "where the inflicted injury is clearly intentional and reckless to the extent that it is beyond the rules and norms of the game in question, the criminal law's threshold of toleration will be breached." 165 As will be discussed below, 166 civil personal injury claims at times share a similar focus on defining consent as consent within the bounds of the rules of the sport.

Not only will the law condone and forgive certain violent actions as warranted through self-defense or provocation, but the court system continues to enact violence itself under color of law in sentencing in the form of physical punishment, including corporal punishment and the death penalty. 167 Legally authorized forms of violence by government officials and citizenry are permitted as a matter of longstanding public policy in both criminal and civil legal systems, based in British common law. 168 For example, to promote discipline and the preservation of social order, British common law permitted unilateral (non-mutual/non-consenting) forms of violence in the death penalty, the husband's right to beat or rape his wife, and the caretaker's right to corporally punish a child. 169 Unilateral, but consenting, violence is permitted in the form of sadomasochism 170 and surgery or other painful medical treatment. Three justification defenses permit mutual combat: (1) status-based authorized assault, such as restraint by law enforcement and emergency personnel; (2) self-defense and defense of others; and (3) assault with consent, such as backyard play and contact sports. 171 All forms of authorized violence are tempered by theories of reasonableness, sometimes culturally or morally defined, but always defined in part by physical safety considerations.

In short, assault causing lethal or grievous harm is not justified except in very limited circumstances, such as self-defense and the death penalty. For the third justification, consent to assault, causing or risking lethal or grievous harm with the  [*29]  consent of the person at risk has never been justified until recently in some highly regulated cases of assisted suicide. 172 In the context of sports, however profitable or regulated, consent to such a risk of lethal or serious harm is never justified under the law. The gladiator sports of old, fought to the death with lions in the ring, are long gone; and the lethal gladiator sports of the imagined future, as seen in the films Death Race 173 or Rollerball 174 are mere figments of the imagination.

A. Consent Defense to Criminal Assault

Consent has a long tradition as a defense to assault in criminal law. 175 A few jurisdictions, however, have held that while consent may alleviate one of liability in tort, it cannot provide a defense for intentional criminal acts. 176 The majority of courts have held that consent is a defense to criminal assault, with the exception of assault causing serious injury or death. 177 The public policy for the restriction has several bases, according to the Montana Supreme Court:

In particular, we recognize that this type of conduct not only puts the combatants at risk, but also jeopardizes the safety of the police, emergency personnel, and bystanders. It also consumes public resources and imposes on society various costs, such as medical expenses and the inability of individuals to feel safe and secure in their persons. 178

Even in the privacy of one's own home, where a breach of the peace is not at issue, the restrictions on the consent defense for assault risking or causing serious injury are  [*30]  consistently applied, such as in cases of mutual domestic violence, sadomasochism, or rough backyard play. 179

Historically, when athletes seriously injure each other, criminal courts consider both the explicit and implicit rules of the game to define what behavior is subject to the consent defenses. 180 An intentional foul, violating such rules, could potentially open the door to criminal liability to assault and battery. 181 Nevertheless, a generous consent defense has restrained the courts from intervening, perhaps because, as some have recently argued, "[b]rutality and intimidation beyond the rules are integral parts of strategy." 182 This modern attitude is far more accepting of overly aggressive play than early common law applying the consent defense to criminal offenses. As one legal scholar asserted in 1895:

A game which involves a physical struggle may be a commendable and manly sport, or it may be an illegal contest in which all the participants are or may become criminals; this depends upon whether it is a game which endangers life. Thus, in a prosecution for a death which was caused accidentally in playing the game of foot-ball, it was left to the jury to say whether the game was dangerous; for if so, consent on the part of the players to submit to what the game had in store for them would not protect a player from prosecution. "No rules or practice of any game whatever can make that lawful which is unlawful by the law of the land, and the law of the land says you shall not do that which is likely to cause the death of another." And where death happened accidentally while two parties were fencing with sharp foils, protected with buttons at the tips, the killer was held guilty of manslaughter. 183

In modern contrast, as the dissenting justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi in Durr v. State cautioned in 1998, when disagreeing with the majority's focus on the  [*31]  rules of sports to define the scope of the consent defense: "Is this to say that any injury arising from a foul amounts to a non-consensual battery? One would hope not." 184

In cases involving consent to assault and battery, the criminal courts place a stronger emphasis on risks to the public due to unlawful breaches of the peace, rather than risks to the players; therefore, permitting public gladiator-like sports only in controlled settings. 185 "A personal injury inflicted by consent may harm the public if it tends to cause a breach of the peace, or severe bodily harm to the injured party. A prizefight, therefore, or any public fight, is criminal, in spite of the consent of the parties to it to permit injury, because it tends to a breach of the peace." 186

Few criminal appellate cases exist examining the defense of consent to intentional injury in a sports context. Identifying the scope of risk has, and perhaps always will be, a matter of wide discretion among judges:

[I]t might be suggested that the continuing and unquestioning lenience to the sport of professional boxing, which also has many regulatory faults and attracts significant criticisms from the legal profession, possibly tells us more about the tolerance of the society we live in toward public displays of personal violence, than it does about the technicalities of the criminal law. 187

At minimum, however, is the continuing principle since early common law that minor injury will not warrant criminal charges in contact sports. 188

B. Combating Civil Liability through the Consent Privilege and Assumption of the Risk

In both criminal and civil contexts, the courts essentially give a wink and a nod to a measured acceptance of humanity's violent nature, particularly in structured, socially acceptable forms of gladiator sports. Our common law history does not ban violence altogether, but merely considers there to be an acceptable degree. 189 Where to draw the line is, of course, the difficult question, and the civil courts have historically been reluctant to draw the line at all for sports-related injuries. However, a greater willingness should emerge among the judiciary in crafting tort reform that is  [*32]  more reliant on the guidance of the defined safety rules of gladiator sports, rules now better informed by advances in medical research. 190

1. History of the Restatement of Torts Approach to Civil Liability for Sports Injury

In the 1934 American Law Institute (ALI) Restatement of the Law of Torts, the interest in freedom from offensive or harmful bodily contacts is circumscribed, along with interests in freedom from confinement and freedom from emotional distress. 191 Of these, "the interest in freedom from bodily harm is given the greatest protection." 192 Protection in tort law is provided against intentional battery, negligent conduct causing bodily harm, and unintentional and non-negligent conduct in activities so dangerous that the law imposes strict liability. 193

In 1934, the Restatement defined battery involving harmful contact in section 13 as:

An act which, directly or indirectly, is the legal cause of a harmful contact with another's person makes the actor liable to the other, if

The act is done with the intention of bringing about a harmful or offensive contact or an apprehension thereof to the other or a third person, and

The contact is not consented to by the other or the other's consent thereto is procured by fraud or duress, and

The contact is not otherwise privileged. 194

The scope note and comment accompanying this section states that the common law remedy for acts intentionally causing bodily harm was trespass for battery; while trespass on the case was the defined remedy for conduct causing bodily harm indirectly and unintentionally or "by an activity which, no matter how carefully carried on, is carried on at the risk of answering for harm caused by it." 195 The 1934 First Restatement distinguishes its definition of battery in section 13 from the common law by the Restatement's expansion of the claim to include both direct and indirect harmful  [*33]  contact, rather than merely direct contact. 196 Both common law and the First Restatement require that battery involve proof of intention to bring about the contact, but "it is immaterial that the actor is not inspired by any personal hostility to or the desire to injure the other." 197

Note that in the First Restatement lack of consent is an express element of the claim, in section 13(b), which must be proved by the plaintiff. By the Second Restatement of Torts in 1965, section 13 was amended, omitting the express consent element:

An actor is subject to liability to another for battery if he acts intending to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the other or a third person or an imminent apprehension of such a contact, and a harmful contact with the person of the other directly or indirectly results. 198

Nevertheless, the comment to section 13 in the Second Restatement makes clear the plaintiff must continue to prove absence of consent, following the common law approach that lack of consent is a "matter essential to the cause of action" for trespass for battery. 199 Consent is a privilege, defined by section 10 of the First Restatement as follows:

(1) The word 'privilege' is used throughout the Restatement of this Subject to denote the fact that conduct which, under ordinary circumstances, would subject the actor to liability, under particular circumstances, does not subject him thereto.

(2) A privilege may be based upon

a. the consent of the other affected by the actor's conduct, or b. irrespective of the other's consent . . . . 200

Thus, intentional harm caused by some activities in gladiator sports, such as a knock out in boxing, would have found a reliable remedy in tort for merely following the agreed upon rules of the sport, had it not been for the availability of the common law privilege of consent to civil battery. 201 Since the First Restatement of Torts, consent to an act "which he knows is intended to inflict an invasion of any of his interests of personality under this Chapter or if he consents to an act which, to a substantial certainty, will result in such an invasion, such consent prevents the actor's conduct from being tortious and, therefore, prevents it from subjecting him to liability  [*34]  for an 'assault,' 'battery' or 'false imprisonment.'" 202 The broad American approach to the privilege of consent under the Restatements differs from the British common law, which sought to limit the consent defense to narrow clearly defined categories of conduct, such as contact sports, but not sadomasochism. 203

Consent is defined in the First Restatement as follows:

To constitute a consent to an intended invasion of an interest of personality, there must be (a) an assent to the particular invasion suffered, (b) given

(i) to the person invading the interest, (ii) by one who is capable of giving consent thereto and whose assent has neither been procured by such duress as makes it inoperative as a consent nor given under a mistake as to the validity of an asserted legal authority. 204

The assent to the particular invasion in section (a) is to the invasion and not merely to the act causing the invasion. 205 As an illustration, the Restatement explains:

If two persons engage in a boxing match, neither of them assents to receiving any particular blow, since each hopes to avoid his adversary's blows by dodging, sidestepping or blocking. However, he does sufficiently express a willingness that the other shall try to hit him, and the expression of such willingness is a sufficient assent to those blows which he is unable to avoid, since while he may avoid some blows, he is substantially certain to receive others. 206

The First Restatement defines assent to include actual and apparent assent. 207 Actual assent looks to the injured party's "words or conduct which are intended to express a willingness to submit to the invasion and are so understood by the person invading the interest." 208 Apparent assent by words or conduct, "while not intended to express a willingness to submit to the invasion, would be understood by a reasonable man to be so intended and are so understood by the person invading the  [*35]  interest." 209 The Second Restatement maintained the concepts, but conceptualized the division as "consent in fact" and "apparent consent" confirming that one is as effective as the other. 210

Those engaged in recreational sports or high-risk activities for entertainment purposes have had to consider the differing criminal and civil approaches to consent to risk. For example, in the highly profitable 2002 film Jackass: The Movie, in which Johnny Knoxville and others engaged in ridiculous acts that put them in or appeared to put them in harm's way, some acts had to be edited out to avoid liability.

One example of this is in the "Riot Control Test" skit. In this skit, Johnny Knoxville is shot at with a beanbag projectile from a pump-action shotgun.

. . . The first time Knoxville is shot at, it misses him making him extremely nervous. The scene was later edited out as, while the "Jackass" crew could waive civil liability, they could not waive criminal liability. Hence, should Johnny or any cast member have been killed or grievously injured as a result of a stunt, the producers of the film could be held liable on the grounds of negligent or reckless homicide or battery. 211

Moreover, whether or not the activity was a competitive game or merely play, Knoxville could not have provided legal consent to an action that involved a likelihood of endangering his life or causing permanent injury, such as blindness. 212

In contrast to the privilege of consent for the intentional tort of battery, consent to negligent conduct may be covered instead by the doctrine of assumption of the risk. 213 Both consent and assumption of the risk would serve as a complete bar to liability claims against the more aggressive player. For over a hundred years, in civil actions, the doctrine of assumption of the risk has been more likely to justify contact sport injuries than the privilege of consent in battery. 214 As with the consent privilege and defense in civil and criminal cases respectively, the rules of the game inform the courts in determining what risk is being assumed. In 1934, the Restatement commented:

Assumption of risk. Taking part in a game manifests a willingness to submit to such bodily contacts or restrictions of liberty as are permitted by its rules  [*36]  or usages. Participating in such a game does not manifest consent to contacts which are prohibited by rules or usages of the game if such rules or usages are designed to protect the participants and not merely to secure the better playing of the game as a test of skill. This is so although the player knows that those with or against whom he is playing are habitual violators of such rules. 215

As with apparent consent to intentional invasions, the assumption of risk to negligence involves a reasonable person standard: that is, would a reasonable person have interpreted the injured party's actions as an expression of willingness to participate? 216 For example, in Bourque v. Duplechin, the Louisiana Court of Appeals held that while a baseball player may assume the risk of obvious and foreseeable events, it would not serve as an affirmative defense for "unexpected or unsportsmanlike" conduct recklessly endangering other players. 217 Here, the Court did not permit the defendant to avail himself of assumption of the risk when he went out of his way at full speed, nearly five feet from the plate, and raised his arm into the chin of the plaintiff in an admitted attempt to block him. 218 In contrast, the same court subsequently held that a softball player sliding into second base, injuring the second base player's ankle, was not negligent under a duty/risk analysis, rather than through assumption of the risk. "The risk of the type of accident which occurred, whether Ms. Mongrue slid head first, feet first, or ran to second base, is inherent in the game." 219

Legal scholar, Heidi Hurd, argues in her review of Peter Westen's recent work, The Logic of Consent:

[T]here is a substantial difference between the scope of a consent defense and the scope of an assumption of risk defense, and unless and until we can sort out why women who dress provocatively do not assume the risk of rape while hockey players who enter an amateur game assume the risk of being cross-checked, we will not be in a position to specify when and why the  [*37]  law ought to impute consent or otherwise transfer losses to persons who assume the risk of others' wrongdoing. 220

In answer to Hurd, there should be no permissible assumption of risk to crosschecking, if it is an illegal maneuver and intentional foul, or to rape under any circumstances, as these are intentional rather than negligent harmful acts. Note, again, that some confusion and resulting disfavor attend interpretation of the assumption of risk doctrine generally and in sports specifically. 221 For example, one critic has argued: "Accurate analysis in the law of negligence would probably be advanced if the term [assumption of risk] were eradicated and the cases divided under the topics of consent, lack of duty, and contributory negligence." 222 Approaches to distinguishing between types of assumption of risk have informed the jurisdictional split. 223 Today, the majority rule is that implied assumption of risk is collapsed into comparative fault, with some statutory exceptions. 224

Finally, although it is beyond the scope of this discussion, it is important to recall that insurance restrictions on coverage for intentional torts 225 would incentivize plaintiffs to file claims in negligence rather than battery. Even with the risk of comparative fault or contributory negligence doctrines reducing or precluding recovery for the plaintiff injured in a basketball game or MMA match, a wider array of defendants with deeper pockets may be available to the plaintiff under negligent  [*38]  supervision theories, 226 than for claims of battery, which only hold against the person actually committing the battery. 227

2. Common Law and the Minimal Duty of Care to Avoid Sports Injury

Although state jurisdictions have always varied in their approaches to finding liability for deliberate or reckless sports injury, some courts have found a very minimal or nonexistent duty of care and a generous assumption of risk in all contact sports. In 1992, the California Supreme Court in Knight v. Jewett declined to find a general duty of care in touch football, relying on a deliberately selective array of judicial opinions from the 1940s to the 1980s from across the United States. 228 The court reasoned that "[t]he risk of physical contact and the possibility of resulting injury is inherent in the game of football, no matter who is playing the game or how it is played." 229 In Knight, a group of friends watching the 1987 Super Bowl decided to play touch football during half time. 230 The defendant allegedly played too roughly, knocking the plaintiff down and injuring her finger so severely it required surgery and amputation. 231 For the reasons stated above, under a theory of implied assumption of the risk, the court held that the trial court properly granted defendant's motions for summary judgment on plaintiff's claims for assault and battery and for negligence. 232

What was not made clear in Knight was which sports would carry such an implied risk of injury and what constitutes ordinary, inherent risk. The majority states, "in the heat of an active sporting event like baseball or football, a participant's normal energetic conduct often includes accidentally careless behavior." 233 However, all sports are active to a degree. The California Supreme Court does not explain what part of the activity renders or defines the conduct as active. Is it person-to-person contact? More than once the Knight court cited judicial examples of downhill mogul skiing cases to support a no duty standard of care in dangerous sports, a sport that is  [*39]  clearly not an interpersonal gladiator sport. 234 Is it unpredictability? One jurisdiction has held that inherent risks of being hit occur for sports involving projectiles. 235 At least one other jurisdiction interpreting Knight has summarized its holding as applicable to both contact and non-contact sports: "While the genteel game of golf can hardly be described as a 'competitive contact sport,' we believe the reckless and intentional standard is every bit as appropriate to conduct on the links as it is to conduct on the polo field." 236

Also, the conduct assessed in Knight was arguably intentional or at least reckless, even if the court based its holding on a no duty of care for ordinary conduct standard in an undefined category of sports activities. The plaintiff in the touch football game argued that, before the injury occurred, she had warned the defendant to calm down, although no rules were ever agreed upon by the group of friends. 237 Instead, in 1992, the Knight court defers to sporting bodies to internally discipline misconduct, suggesting that litigation does not provide the proper remedy for dangerous conduct in sports:

The cases have recognized that, in such a sport, even when a participant's conduct violates a rule of the game and may subject the violator to internal sanctions prescribed by the sport itself, imposition of legal liability for such conduct might well alter fundamentally the nature of the sport by deterring participants from vigorously engaging in activity that falls close to, but on the permissible side of, a prescribed rule. 238

However, this argument for internal and consistent regulation does little to protect players in the informal touch football game the court addressed in the Knight decision.

In 1999, the Michigan Supreme Court in Ritchie-Gamester v. City of Berkley asserted that it followed the majority approach of Knight and other state jurisdictions and would not find a duty of care for ordinary risks in sports, but would find a duty of care and a breach of that duty for reckless and intentional sports-related injury. 239 However, in contrast to the reasoning in Knight, the court in its majority and concurring opinions limited its holding by acknowledging a respect for the rules and regulations of the sport that ensured player safety.

 [*40]  The act of stepping onto the field of play may be described as "consent to the inherent risks of the activity," or a participant's knowledge of the rules of a game may be described as "notice" sufficient to discharge the other participants' duty of care. Similarly, participants' mutual agreement to play a game may be described as an "implied contract" between all the participants, or a voluntary participant could be described as "assuming the risks" inherent in the sport. No matter what terms are used, the basic premise is the same: When people engage in a recreational activity, they have voluntarily subjected themselves to certain risks inherent in that activity. 240

The concurring opinion in Ritchie-Gamester most clearly suggests that players only assume the ordinary risks of injury from activities that comply with the rules of the sport. That is, players who violate the rules of the game, thereby causing injury to another, should be considered liable under a recklessness standard. According to Justice Brickley, "[i]ndeed, it would likely be a great surprise to the millions of participants in Michigan's recreational sports and activities that, by participating, they were legally consenting to their coparticipants' breach of the safety rules of those activities." 241

As recently as 2010, the Iowa Supreme Court expressed sympathy for a more generous contact sports "no duty" standard, even if the rules of the sport were violated:

[T]he violation of a sport's rules creates a risk of injury to participants that would not necessarily exist without the infraction, such as when players run into punters in football, midfielders are high-sticked in lacrosse, basketball players are fouled, batters are hit by pitched balls in baseball, and hockey players are tripped. Yet, such contact is nevertheless inherent in each game because no participant can play the game error free. Thus, players accept risks of harm inherent in a sport both derived from activities that are executed as contemplated by the sport and activities that are improperly executed. 242

However, the Iowa Supreme Court failed to distinguish between sporting errors caused by intentional or reckless conduct and errors caused by negligent conduct.

Since these decisions, other courts, such as the Indiana Supreme Court in Pfenning v. Lineman, explicitly declined to uphold a no duty of care rule for sports-related injury claims based in negligence. 243 In 2011, the court in Pfenning sought a compromise, permitting a lesser duty of care for ordinary sports activities to ensure continued encouragement of physical activity, but with consideration of reasonableness and the possibility of finding a breach of duty of care:

But in cases involving sports injuries, and in such cases only, we conclude that a limited new rule should apply acknowledging that reasonableness  [*41]  may be found by the court as a matter of law. As noted above, the sports participant engages in physical activity that is often inexact and imprecise and done in close proximity to others, thus creating an enhanced possibility of injury to others. 244

The Indiana Supreme Court specifically held that "intentional or reckless infliction of injury may be found to be a breach of duty." 245 However, keep in mind that even at the time of Knight in the 1990s, some jurisdictions were contemplating the application of liability for negligence in the sports context. 246 That is, recent attention to medical advances in sports safety, particularly with respect to concussion risks, has not been the sole influence on the courts in finding liability for unnecessary roughness.

Most recently, in Green v. Pro Football, Inc., the federal District Court in Maryland held that New York Giants defensive linebacker, Barrett Green, may have had a lawful claim for intentional injury against Pro Football, Inc., the owner of the Washington Redskins. 247 Allegedly, Washington Redskins player Robert Royal was encouraged by team managers to injure Green, a strong defensive player. 248 The claim alleged that during play in 2004, Royal lowered his helmet and dove straight for Green's knee, which was known to be slightly injured, immediately disabling him. "Although Green underwent surgery when the season ended, he never recovered his form and his football career was effectively over." 249 Royal was sued in 2013 for battery and negligence, while Pro Football, Inc. was sued under theories of vicarious liability and negligent supervision. 250 The district court held that the fraudulent concealment exception to the statute of limitations allowed the claims related to the bounty program to proceed:

The discovery that Royal's hit was conceivably legally actionable was first raised by outside events, i.e., by the news articles disclosing the alleged bounty program. In an injury case involving professional football players in the course of play, such as purportedly occurred here, given that strong,  [*42]  even violent physical impact is part and parcel of the game, it would not be immediately apparent that a player's "dignitary interest" had been invaded. A number of nonliability hypotheses could explain the hit, such as the reasonable belief that Royal was telling the truth following the game that his hit was unintentional, as well as Green's own Coach's reassurance that the hit was unintentional. 251

However, the court also held that the statute of limitations barred Green's claims against Royal for pure intentional battery or negligence, because all of the elements were known to the plaintiff when the injury occurred in 2004. 252

Although worthy of examination, it is not yet clear in the sports context whether a trend is emerging to eliminate the no duty or minimal duty of care in contact sports, or at least to more readily find a breach of duty of care for reckless or intentional injury. Subsequent to Knight's deferential approach to rough play in sports regardless of rule violations, the California courts refused to extend the Knight holding. 253 Yet other jurisdictions continue to assert a no duty of care rule for ordinary risks in contact sports. 254 The current era of better public health research and understanding of serious risks in sports, however, should influence courts and legislatures to consider more uniformity in encouraging respect for the safety rules of the game. As will be discussed in Part IV, public health policy should discourage strategic use of the intentional foul, by permitting a finding of liability for more cases of reckless and intentional bad sportsmanship causing injury.

C. The Criminal and Civil Liability of Minor Athletes in Gladiator Sports

Children and adolescents may or may not bear heightened risks of injury from concussion due to their developmental stages. 255 However, their liability when causing injury to each other through overly aggressive play is likely to be more limited than it would be for adults.

In criminal cases, the age of criminal responsibility would restrict the reach of the criminal justice system, for at least the youngest players. Moreover, the debate regarding legal approaches to violent sports is occurring at a time when lawmakers are acknowledging new research on adolescent brain development and the subsequent need to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility. By 2016, all states, except North Carolina and New York, would prosecute those under the age of 18 as minors,  [*43]  rather than as adults. 256 Even so, the juvenile justice system's approach to charges of battery or aggravated battery for a sports-related injury would more likely differ in sentencing than in a finding of criminal liability or application of the consent defense.

In civil cases, minors or their parents continue to be potentially subject to liability for sports-related torts. In 1959, the Louisiana Court of Appeals held that a ten-year-old boy, who swung a bat backwards in an informal backyard game, hitting a four-year-old girl in the face, was liable in negligence for her injuries because he should have taken more precautions to look out for the young girl. 257 With an approach still common today, the court asserted: "[W]e think it is clearly established, under our jurisprudence, that a parent is liable for damages caused by the act of his minor child in using a dangerous instrumentality where surrounding circumstances indicate that damage may result; or in using any instrument in a negligent or careless manner, even if it be not inherently dangerous." 258

Soon after, the same court followed the Restatement of Torts in also highlighting the influence of immaturity levels on the duty of care: "A child of tender years is not required to conform to the standard of behavior which it is reasonable to expect of an adult. His conduct is rather to be judged by the standard of behavior to be expected from a child of like age, intelligence and experience" 259 In this case, a bat flying out of the hands of the defendant batter in a youth baseball game, injuring another player, was found not to be an act of negligence. According to the Louisiana Court of Appeals, the players assumed the risk of this type of injury: "[T]he injured minor, an alert, intelligent, young athlete, had previously played baseball many times, had played 'Little League Baseball' and was thoroughly familiar with the danger of being struck by flying balls or bats." 260 Therefore, while some consideration is given to  [*44]  reducing legal responsibility based on competency and immaturity, the courts have also noted that minors are some of our most skilled athletes, more than capable of understanding fair play and the safety rules of the game.

IV . SAVING THE GLADIATOR: RESTRICTING THE INTENTIONAL FOUL

If the secondary prevention methods put forth by the wave of anti-concussion state legislation cannot prevent injury from occurring in the first place, as discussed in Part II(C), it is crucial that policymakers consider whether primary prevention is possible. More stringent legal restrictions on dangerous rule violations in the form of flagrant fouls and intentional fouls should be in every policy discussion related to traumatic brain injury in gladiator sports. According to some in sports medicine, with a focus on soccer:

The primary means in which rates of TBI incidence in sports will reduce is through rule changes to minimize head impacts moving forward. Penalizing, fining, or suspending athletes who intentionally impact another players head are means to discourage brain trauma. No longer allowing football (soccer) players to head the ball removes a large risk factor as it has been shown that heading accounts for around 50% of brain injuries in sport. 261

Therefore, the rules of the game may be changed by sports bodies to reflect current medical understandings of risk. State regulatory reform may impact prevention and training measures. But statutory and judicial reform may also significantly influence sports safety by opening the door to legal intervention to enforce such rules. As will be discussed below, a combined policy approach may help ensure that the intentional foul in gladiator sports no longer constitutes an unpredictable and dangerous practice without legal redress.

A. Athletic Rules and Judicial Reform Sanctioning the Intentional Foul

Examining the rules of gladiator sports and their specific sanctions and disciplinary measures for player misconduct is informative when assessing the efficacy of the common law reliance on game rules for the criminal consent defense to assault, as well as theories of consent to civil battery. 262 Does a focus on points and winning for flagrantly intentional, violent and unruly conduct adequately reflect the official's duty to maintain the safety and wellbeing of players? The recent changes to NFL rules provide monetary penalties and game suspensions for deliberate hits to the head. 263  [*45]  In MMA, the survivor rule in competition bouts does not allow the loser of a bout to move forward if he or she caused the winner to become injured through an intentional foul. 264 However, historically few "major bans" have occurred for rule-breaking violence during the game. 265 Below is a table of various sanctions for the most dangerous intentional fouls in gladiator sports in the United States. Certainly other sanctions are available as necessary, but a common pattern is exhibited in which the sanction is focused on removing a strategic advantage. That is, the remedy addresses the players' respective ability to win the game.

 [*46]  RULE SANCTIONS FOR INTENTIONAL FOULS IN AMERICAN GLADIATOR SPORTS

SPORT	INTENTIONAL FOUL	POTENTIAL SANCTIONS
American	. If the intentional foul is	. The fouling boxer shall
Boxing	severe enough to terminate	lose by disqualification
Association 266	the bout	. The injured boxer may win
	. If the intentional foul	on a technical decision if
	results in an injury that	had more points at the time
	stops the bout in a later	the injury stops the bout
	round
Mixed Martial	. Kicking the head of a	. Points are deducted from
Arts (MMA)/	player on the ground	the fouling player's
Ultimate	. Attacking opponent	scorecard
Fighting	after the bell has	. If the foul was committed
Championship	sounded	from a bottom player, the
(UFC) 267	. Clawing or pinching	contest will continue if
	. Hair pulling	there is no injury
	. Groin attacks	. Possible termination of
		fouling player from the
		match
American	. Illegal use of hands,	. Loss of 10 yards
Football 268	arms, or body by the	. Loss of 5 yards/ automatic
	offense	first down
	. Illegal holding by the	. Loss of 15 yards/ possible
	defense	disqualification
	. Striking, kicking,
	kneeing, or unnecessary
	roughness
National	. Profanity, taunting,	. Technical Foul, ball
Basketball	deliberately throwing an	awarded to the team when
Association	elbow, physically taunting	the technical foul was
(NBA ) 269	an official	committed/Free throws
	. Fighting with other players	. Ejection from game
American	. Serious foul play, violent	. Fouling player gets a red
Soccer 270	conduct, attempting to kick	card/ejected from the
	another player	game/ team must play a
		player short for the
		remainder of the game

 [*47]  If the rules of the game are not sufficiently clear and the speed of the game makes it difficult to determine fault, then players will have difficulty providing adequate informed consent if they are not sure what is deemed safe conduct. In 1977, in Hackbart v. Cincinnati Bengals, Inc., the United States District Court of Colorado found no liability for a professional football player's deliberate blow with his right forearm to the back of the opponent plaintiff's head, when the plaintiff was kneeling on the ground and the play was complete. 271 The court was persuaded that the plaintiff had assumed the risk, knowing how the game had come to be played: "that the level of violence and the frequency of emotional outbursts in NFL football games are such that Dale Hackbart must have recognized and accepted the risk that he would be injured by such an act as that committed by the defendant." 272

The Tenth Circuit in Hackbart disagreed, reversing and remanding the lower court ruling. 273 The Circuit Court relied on the fact that the player's conduct violated the rules of football and remanded with instructions to the court to base its decision on considerations of liability due to recklessness, rather than social policy that "the game was so violent and unlawful that valid lines could not be drawn . . . ." 274 In a clear holding, applying civil liability to intentional and reckless conduct in the most violent gladiator sports, the Tenth Circuit supported the need to rely on the safety rules of the game:

Contrary to the position of the court then, there are no principles of law which allow a court to rule out certain tortious conduct by reason of general roughness of the game or difficulty of administering it.

Indeed, the evidence shows that there are rules of the game which prohibit the intentional striking of blows. Thus, Article 1, Item 1, Subsection C, provides that: All players are prohibited from striking on the head, face or neck with the heel, back or side of the hand, wrist, forearm, elbow or clasped hands. . . . Undoubtedly these restraints are intended to establish reasonable boundaries so that one football player cannot intentionally inflict a serious injury on another. Therefore, the notion is not correct that all reason has been abandoned, whereby the only possible remedy for the person who has been the victim of an unlawful blow is retaliation. 275

Hackbart continues to be cited regularly, including most recently by the United States District Court of Maryland in Green v. Pro Football, Inc. 276 The rules of the game matter not only to ensure safety through uniformity and restrictive play, but to  [*48]  maximize the benefits of the sport, including the potential positive bonding and character building touted by so many sports enthusiasts. 277

Players cannot learn self-control or how to form mutually respectful and supportive relationships from athletic participation if they do not share a common understanding of the expectations of fair and safe play. For example, in State v. Shelley, in a particularly rough pick-up college basketball game at the University of Washington, the defendant player was convicted of assault, but asserted he had felt so threatened by another player's deliberate rule violations that he punched the aggressive player in self-defense. 278 The defendant testified at trial that "Gonzalez [the victim witness] continually beat him up during the game by fouling him hard." 279

In conflict management theory, methods without boundaries such as "explaining, persuading, and compromising, often make moral conflicts worse . . . because the parties lack a reasonable, common basis for settling their disagreements." 280 As with play generally in childhood: "In their play, children can experience strong emotions such as anger, fear or disgust in relative safety because the frame is playful rather than 'real'; in order for the frame to hold and the game to continue, the expression of these emotions needs to be understood as playful by all players." 281 Clear, enforced rules are essential to maintaining both fair play and safety in aggressive human contact, particularly in more dangerous gladiator sports.

Some sports lend themselves to easier rule reform than others. For example, checking can arguably be eliminated from the sport of hockey, and the goals of the game and method of scoring would continue to remain as is. 282 However, American football would change fundamentally if all tackling and blocking were prohibited, and obviously boxing or kickboxing would be eliminated entirely if physical blows were disallowed. 283 Nevertheless compromises have already been made, with rule changes ensuring greater protection of quarterbacks in the NFL from hits from behind, hits in the head, and late tackles. 284 By 2013, the NFL amended its rules to require  [*49]  independent neurologists to be available on the sidelines to assess for head trauma among players. 285

With full disclosure of the risks, the essential nature of gladiator sports should be preserved as long as adult athletes wish to continue to play and compete by the rules. However, from both a medical and legal perspective, youth sports require much greater care in enforcing rules, reforming rules, and providing quality medical care to prevent serious long term injury in minors who lack the capacity for meaningful consent to the risks of play. Addressing reform through the public school system is not enough. For example, "the vast majority of non-school-related youth sports leagues, including football, conduct their events without any trainers or trained medical personnel in attendance." 286

Also, considerations of negligent supervision remain: "among which dangers, we think, should fairly be included the danger incurred from playing games inherently dangerous for the age-group involved, or likely to become dangerous if allowed to be engaged in without supervision." 287 For example, while school districts have discretion to promulgate and enforce athletic and recreational rules, a duty is imposed by law on the school district to take certain precautions to protect students from reasonably anticipated dangers, at least while they are in the custody of the public school personnel. 288

As explained by the Illinois Court of Appeals, in holding a forward in a school soccer game liable for kicking a goalie in the head after the goalie had already caught the ball:

One of the educational benefits of organized athletic competition to our youth is the development of discipline and self control.

Individual sports are advanced and competition enhanced by a comprehensive set of rules. Some rules secure the better playing of the game as a test of skill. Other rules are primarily designed to protect participants from serious injury. [sic]

For these reasons, this court believes that when athletes are engaged in an athletic competition, all teams involved are trained and coached by knowledgeable personnel; a recognized set of rules governs the conduct of the competition; and a safety rule is contained therein which is primarily designed to protect players from serious injury, a player is then charged with a legal duty to every other player on the field to refrain from conduct proscribed by a safety rule. . . . The defendant contends he is immune from  [*50]  tort action for any injury to another player that happens during the course of a game, to which theory we do not subscribe. 289

Thus, those jurisdictions that continue to grant an overly broad consent defense to criminal and civil assault and battery in contact sports should instead follow the more restrictive jurisdictions that hold players accountable for injury caused by intentional or reckless conduct outside the scope of the rules. As sports bodies continue to refine their rules in the interests of safety, judicial interpretation of reasonable and expected conduct in charges and claims of battery and vicarious liability would naturally shift as well. While this approach asks courts to wait for sports bodies to change their own rules in order to expand liability, it also respects an adult athlete's autonomous choice to participate in more dangerous regulated gladiator sports.

B. Statutory Reform: The Impact of Public Health Police Power on the Intentional Foul

If sports bodies do not adequately create or enforce rules that protect players from an unreasonable risk of intentional serious harm or injury, state legislatures could act, if only to slightly open the gates of litigation and encourage the sports bodies to step up. For example, statutory reform could impose restrictions on the criminal consent defense to assault and the consent privilege in civil actions. A number of states have already done so. For example, in Texas, consent as a defense to certain criminal assault offenses is restricted as follows: 290

(a) The victim's effective consent or the actor's reasonable belief that the victim consented to the actor's conduct is a defense to prosecution under Section 22.01 (Assault), 22.02 (Aggravated Assault), or 22.05 (Deadly Conduct) if: (1) the conduct did not threaten or inflict serious bodily injury; or (2) the victim knew the conduct was a risk of:

(A) his occupation; (B) recognized medical treatment; or (C) a scientific experiment conducted by recognized methods.

(b) The defense to prosecution provided by Subsection (a) is not available to a defendant who commits an offense described by Subsection (a) as a condition of the defendant's or the victim's initiation or continued membership in a criminal street gang, as defined by Section 71.01.

Here, there is no stated contact sports exception, and it is therefore clear that reckless or intentional serious bodily injury is prohibited under the doctrine expressio unius est exclusio alterius.

In contrast, when states, such as Missouri, use vague language to permit a broader contact sports exception, legal enforcement of public health informed sports safety rules is more challenging. Missouri Revised Statutes section 565.080(1) provides:

 [*51]  When conduct is charged to constitute an offense because it causes or threatens physical injury, consent to that conduct or to the infliction of the injury is a defense only if: (1) The physical injury consented to or threatened by the conduct is not serious physical injury; or (2) The conduct and the harm are reasonably foreseeable hazards of

(a) The victim's occupation or profession; or

(b) Joint participation in a lawful athletic contest or competitive sport; . . . . 291

At least one court has argued that the broad language of reasonable foreseeability permits the court to find liability for conduct even within the rules of the sport, but this is not a common interpretation. 292 As has been shown throughout this discussion, most courts in jurisdictions without statutory restrictions on the consent defense in contact sports earnestly seek to avoid finding liability.

The authority to enact legislation restricting the consent defense lies in the state's police power, 293 interpreted by the courts with considerable deference. As put forth by the Illinois Supreme Court:

And while, as we have noted, such legislative action is generally subject to judicial review to determine whether it is related to and reasonably necessary and suitable for the protection of the public health, safety, welfare or morals, courts will not disturb a police regulation where there is room for a difference of opinion, but in such case the legislative judgment will prevail. 294