Seeking Compensation for Paintball Injuries

Seeking Compensation for Paintball Injuries is a post from: http://www.personalinjurylawyercalgaryinc.ca/

What Is Paintball?

Paintball is a popular game for millions of enthusiasts, worldwide. Players of the wildly popular sport pretend to engage in real combat utilizing “paintball guns”, with which they actually shoot opponents using pellets filled with paint to tag their opponent as having been shot. Paintball guns utilize compressed carbon dioxide to create projectiles from the tiny pellets filled with simple marker paint, which explode when they make contact with a person or other object.

Paintball has received some attention for being a controversial sport, because critics think an unreasonable risk is undertaken by players who could suffer serious injuries such as being blinded or dying. When paintball projectiles are shot from a paintball gun, they have the ability to travel between 250-300 feet every second, which is equivalent to about 200 miles per hour. If you or a relative have been hurt while playing the sport, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit to receive just compensation for your injuries.

Common Paintball Injuries

An estimated 20-45 injuries take place for every 100,000 people engaged in paintball. Among many of these injuries, the sufferers are minors. According to the CPSC (United States Consumer Product Safety Commission), these injuries to kids under 15 increased by doubled during 1998-2000. Minute injuries can include cuts, bruises, and raised welts. It’s also not unheard of for players to suffer sprained or twisted ankles while running on fields or experiencing shortness of breath when shot in the throat during game-play. More grievous injuries that have occurred are eye and ear injuries and even death.

Paintball Eye injuries

The most common paintball injuries are eye-related. It’s estimated that 85% of paintball injuries are eye-related. These injuries are, unfortunately, growing. Paintball eye injuries being treated in emergency rooms grew from an estimated 545 in 1998 to in excess of 1,200 in 2000. More than 40% of these injuries were suffered by male children. Specific kinds of paintball eye injuries tend to include bleeding in the eye, detachment of the retina, cataracts, abrasions to the cornea, and bruising and swelling of the retina. Many of these injuries end in irreversible visual impairment or total loss of vision.

Paintball Ear injuries

Next to eye injuries, the most common paintball injuries are to the ear. A close range shot with a paintball to the ear can cause a concussion, an ear drum rupture, ear ringing, ear cartilage damage to the ear (disfiguring the outer ear), or even permanent hearing loss or partial hearing loss.

Paintball Deaths

In 2004, the CPSC issued a safety warning regarding paintball guns subsequent to two untimely deaths related to carbon dioxide canister detachment from paintball guns. In 2003, a boy of 15 met his end subsequent to being struck in the head by the carbon dioxide cylinder he removed from his paintball gun while still under pressure. In 2004, a woman of 37, who was an innocent bystander, lost her life as a result of being struck in the posterior portion of her head by a carbon dioxide cylinder erroneously unscrewed from a gun by a player. The woman’s husband sued the paintball gun manufacturer, arguing the device was defective and caused his wife’s untimely death. His lawsuit was settled for $8 Million.

Possible Legal Claims in a Paintball Injury Lawsuit

Paintball Negligence Injuries

The most common legal claim in lawsuits involving personal injury is negligence. In this type of claim, the plaintiff suing the defendant, makes the argument that their injuries were caused by the carelessness of the defendant, who is being sued. If one is able to provide proof that their paintball injury was caused by negligence of another such as another player or the failure of the paintball facility to provide protective gear, one may be able to recover just compensation for injuries incurred.

Defective Product Paintball Injuries

If a paintball injury was caused by a defective or unsafe product such as a defective paintball gun or mask, one may be afforded the ability to engage in a product liability claim against the developer, distributor, or retailer of the defective product.

Assault & Battery Paintball Injuries

If a paintball injury was due to another player’s intentional act as opposed to an accident, one may be able to sue under “assault or battery”.

Defenses in Paintball Injury Cases

Assumption of Risk

Since playing paintball involves a degree of risk, the defendant may utilize the “assumption of risk” defense. Using this defense, the defendant makes an argument that one is not entitled to compensation due to the choice one made to engage in an activity that presented a known risk of harm to oneself.

Consent

Consent is a common defense in an intentional assault and battery tort lawsuit involving contact sports such as paintball. A defendant may raise the argument that consent was present and will have the burden of proving that the injured party agreed to the possibility of being harmed. If this defense is fruitful, the defendant won’t be held legally at fault for injuries incurred during this activity.

Compensation in Paintball Injury Cases

The primary purpose of a financial compensation, “damages”, in personal injury cases is to provide just compensation to an injured party because they incurred losses from their injury. Damages possibly recovered in any lawsuit regarding paintball injuries depend on the nature of the injury suffered, but tend to include reimbursement for medical expenses and compensation for pain and suffering due to the injury.