Leonard Ex Rel. Meyer v. Behrens

Plaintiffs, Eric Leonard and his mother Nancy Meyer, appeal the judgment of the district court dismissing their case following the defendant’s motion for directed verdict. Plaintiffs had claimed the defendant, Chad Behrens, was negligent in shooting Eric in the eye during a game of paintball and in failing to warn him of the tendency of the goggles Chad had supplied him to fog up. The court ruled that the “contact sports exception” to the general rule of negligence applied whereby the plaintiff was required to prove that the defendant acted recklessly and that the plaintiffs had failed to…