Many people enjoy exercising at a gym, and those of us who don’t should learn to, for our own health and well-being. That acknowledged, injuries can easily happen at a gym, due to many causes, including faulty equipment and untrained staff. Keep reading to learn more about how gym injuries happen, what to do if you experience a gym injury, and what you can expect in a lawsuit. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Rockland County premises liability lawyers today. We’ll guide you through and bring all our knowledge to getting you the best compensation we can.
Well-Known Kinds of Gym Injuries and Why They Happen
What are some of the more frequent types of gym injuries? You should know, so that you can be careful and protect yourself from these.
- Cardiac events
- Shin splints
- Groin pulls
- Wrist sprains and dislocations
- Bone fractures
- Head, shoulder, back, and brain injuries
Why do these kinds of injuries happen often? It can be for a number of reasons, among them:
- Unsafe conditions
- Improperly maintained equipment
- Falling free weights
- Overexerting yourself
What Should I Do After a Gym Injury?
The very first thing you should do is get medical attention. Besides taking care of your health, it will create a paper trail if you later decide to file a lawsuit. Also be sure to tell a gym employee what happened.
Once you yourself are feeling better, you can consider taking a picture of where you were hurt. You can ask for identifying documents from those around you. If you want and they are willing, you might interview them about your gym injury.
However, do not sign a waiver. A waiver is not impossible to overcome if you already signed it, but better not to if you haven’t. Please do reach out to a lawyer soon.
Possible Gym Defenses
Here we will go over some typical arguments that gyms bring up during lawsuits.
Implied and Express Assumption of Risk
In New York, courts consider assumption of risk, which is when plaintiffs willingly and knowingly engaged in a risky activity.
When courts use the term “express assumption of risk,” they mean that someone, most likely the defendant, told the plaintiff about the risks involved and the plaintiff accepted the risks, either in writing or verbally.
The plaintiff may have signed a waiver. Frequently used waivers include waivers for negligence, waivers for intentional acts, and total waivers of liability. Waivers for intentional acts are sometimes perceived as against public policy, while total liability waivers may be seen as impractically broad. For these reasons, courts might not enforce them.
When courts refer to “implied assumption of risk,” they mean that even if you weren’t explicitly told and didn’t explicitly agree, the information was made available to you and a reasonable person would have realized the risk. As an example, if the fym has placed warning signs around a dangerous piece of equipment and you still use it, it may be said that you implicitly assumed the risk.
