Rugby League: Does Ritson action take rules too far?

By Peter Jessup

It'll be a sad day for contact sport if Adam Ritson's legal action against Kiwi prop John Lomax comes to more than newspaper headlines.

There was general bemusement in league circles yesterday over Ritson's decision to go to court seeking damages from Lomax after a high tackle. The shifting ground on which the case is founded looks a lawyer's dream.

The National Rugby League wasn't overly concerned at Ritson's action, to be called before the New South Wales Court next month, and is not anticipating a rash of similar cases in its wake.

The situation does not apply in New Zealand because any injury received in a football game is covered by ACC and therefore the right to sue is removed.

But NRL clubs and players were checking their contracts and their insurance yesterday because the same does not apply in Australia; the Auckland Warriors, the Kiwis or any visiting age group or club team player could face a civil claim as Lomax is.

There is precedent for players to be held accountable in law for injury-related incidents. Most financially significant in the Australian league was an action brought by Cronulla and Australian centre Steve Rogers against Newtown prop Mark Bugden for breaking his jaw in an illegal tackle.

Rogers was awarded $A69,000. Newtown appealed, the court awarded Rogers an extra $15,500.

And last year former Balmain and Australia fullback Gary Jack took similar action against former Manly prop Ian Roberts, the pair settling out of court.

Police have laid charges ranging from assault to manslaughter, a New Zealander cleared of the latter two years ago after a Brisbane player died following a dangerous tackle.

All players are obliged to sign a document agreeing they'll abide by the rules of the game and will be subject to the game's judiciary if charged with an offence.

But in taking the field in a contact sport there is also tacit agreement that exposure to physical contact is expected; it's a matter of how far the contact goes.

The courts have determined that all players owe a duty of care to others. That raises issues of consent and forseeability. That is, how much violent contact does a player consent to?

The courts have already said that any player in a physical contact sport could expect to be on the receiving end of a punch - it doesn't mean you can't sue if punched, but that the damages received will be affected.

A player who high-tackles can be held accountable if a jury decides that any reasonable person would foresee that the action he carried out was liable to cause injury.

The Ritson/Lomax issue is swathed in fog. Ritson was KO'd by the high shot from Lomax during the 1996 game between Canberra and Parramatta, Lomax receiving a five-week suspension and Ritson going for x-rays and a scan that subsequently revealed he had a cyst on the brain.

It ended his career at age 20, but it was said at the time that he was lucky to have had the cyst discovered and removed because it could have caused much worse drama had it gone undetected.

Lomax can't face criminal action since he was making a tackle - careless, reckless or whatever, it was still an integral part of the game.

Should the case be heard there will undoubtedly be medical evidence as to what extent the tackle affected an existing condition. Contradiction seems inevitable.

The outcome may well come down to one determinant - Lomax's intent when he went in to the tackle. Could he have foreseen that the tackle might aggravate a cyst already growing on Ritson's brain? Most props wouldn't know what a brain cyst was.

More to the point, where would success for Ritson leave the 172 players taking the field this weekend? They'd have to play touch.