where professional athletes are concerned, it is likely that disclosure will be made to both at the same time because of the athlete’s and the medic’s contractual obligations.

SPECIALIST REFERRALS

A similar conflict of interest can be seen to arise when an injured player is referred for treatment to a specialist or consultant. In the case of West Bromwich Albion Football Club v El-Safty (4), the football club was trying to claim that the consultant orthopaedic surgeon El-Safty, to whom the club’s physiotherapist had referred an injured employee- player, owed them a duty of care not to cause him injury. As a result of El-Safty’s (admittedly) negligent conduct, the player was unable to resume his career and the club sought compensation equivalent to the player’s value on the transfer market (approximately £1 million).

The court held that, despite the fact that the club’s own

physiotherapist had made the referral, and despite the club’s interest in the procedures being carried out on the player in a non-negligent manner, and despite the fact that the club was paying the player’s health insurance premiums, the only duty owed by the consultant was to the player, not to the employing club. Although El-Safty was still liable to the player for the injuries caused to him and for the accompanying loss of earnings, he was not liable for any further losses sustained by the club in having to replace its injured employee.

EXPERT WITNESSES The final occasion on which a sports medic may come into contact with the law is when called on to act as an expert witness. This will usually be to comment on the conduct of a fellow medical practitioner. It is always of the utmost importance that, if asked to act as an expert witness, you provide an opinion that is within your sphere of expertise and that your expertise is relevant to the case before the court. A salutary lesson can be learned from the case of

Blackburn Rovers Football Club v Avon Insurance plc (5). Blackburn sought to claim a sum of £4 million plus interest from its insurance company following a career-ending training accident involving its Swedish international player Martin Dahlin. After falling awkwardly, Dahlin was found to be suffering from degenerative disc order, a condition that restricted his movement and his ability to play professional football. The club’s insurance policy would pay out only for injuries suffered during training or play and not for those that were caused by pre- existing conditions or by general degeneration, ie. wear and tear.

The trial centred on the issue of 16

CONCLUSION Despite the increase in sports-related litigation and the ongoing debate about a compensation culture, the number of cases involving sports medicine practitioners is extremely small. The simple reason for this is that the vast majority of practitioners do act within their spheres of competence and do not do anything that could be considered to be out of step with the body of opinion that holds sway in their own specialism. This does not mean that there is any room for complacency. As can be seen from the examples above, as soon as a practitioner starts to act outside of their area of specialism, they run the risk of being held to have breached the duty that they owe to their patient. The courts have not extended liability unnecessarily or in a way that is out of line with other areas of medical law – but in a field of specialism that is growing, the scope for litigation to test its boundaries is always present.

References 1. Gardiner S, James M, O’Leary J et al. Sports law. Cavendish Publishing 2006. ISBN 1859418945 2. Collett v Smith and Middlesbrough Football and Athletics Company (1986) Ltd [2008] EWHC 1962 (QB)

3. Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Company 1957 1 WLR 582; Bolitho v City and Hackney Health Authority 1998 AC 232. (See also Steele J. Tort law: text, cases and materials. Oxford University Press 2007. ISBN 0199248858 4. West Bromwich Albion Football Club v El-Safty 2006 EWCA Civ 1299. (See also Lewis A, Taylor J. Sport: law and practice. Tottel Publishing 2008. ISBN 9781847660664) 5. Blackburn Rovers Football Club v Avon Insurance plc 2006 EWHC 840 (QB).

whether the degenerative disc disorder was caused by a single traumatic event – the training ground incident – or was normal wear and tear on the body of a 29-year-old professional footballer. At trial, Avon Insurance called a Mr Webb, a consultant spinal surgeon, to give evidence on the company’s behalf. Blackburn called a Mr King, a consultant in orthopaedic and trauma surgery and knee specialist. Although clearly capable of offering an opinion on the case, the evidence of Blackburn’s expert witness was significantly less cogent than that of the spinal injury specialist, a fact exacerbated by Mr King’s demurral to the opinion of Mr Webb on several occasions. When such a significant amount of money is at stake, as in this case, it is obviously important to use a specialist in the field and to accept the brief of being an expert witness only if you can properly regard yourself as expert.

THE AUTHOR

Mark James is a reader in law at the Salford Law School, University of Salford. He has taught, researched and written about sports law, in particular as it relates to sports injuries, for many years. He is co-author of the third edition of Sports

Law (Routledge Cavendish 2006) and the author of Palgrave Law Masters: Sports Law (Palgrave Macmillan 2009). He has co-organised a series of seminars on the law relating to sports and exercise medical practitioners with medical and legal training services and presented papers on this topic for them, for the Manchester Sports Medicine Clinic and for the Rugby Football League.

sportEX dynamics 2009;20(Apr):14-16