Football has always carried real risks, and any athlete who puts on pads understands that violent contact is part of the sport.
Now, after a 16-year-old player died following a catastrophic injury, his family is asking the courts to answer a harder question: was his death an unavoidable football tragedy, or did the school district allegedly create conditions that made the game more dangerous than it should have been?
Michael P. Hernandez, a partner with HHJ Trial Attorneys, told The California Post that the case may turn on an important legal line in California’s “primary assumption of risk” doctrine.
Under that rule, Hernandez explained, players who take the field are generally understood to accept the ordinary dangers that come with football, including the physical collisions built into the game.
That means a school district is not automatically liable every time a student-athlete is injured while playing a contact sport.
However, Hernandez said that legal protection does not cover every circumstance.
A dangerously hard or neglected playing surface, he noted, is not simply part of football — it points to a potential failure in field maintenance and athlete safety.
That legal distinction now sits at the center of the wrongful death lawsuit brought by Garcia’s family.
Christopher, a junior varsity player at South East High School, played in a varsity game Aug. 23, 2024, according to his family and attorneys.
During the game, his head struck the ground after what his legal team describes as a “textbook defensive tackle.”
The hit caused a catastrophic brain injury.
Christopher died 11 days later despite emergency medical treatment.
His family alleges that LAUSD failed to “provide safe facilities, proper equipment, and adequate supervision.”
The case has already reignited a heated debate over where the inherent dangers of football end and school responsibility begins.
And because Christopher’s family describes the play as a “textbook tackle,” some have argued that the tragedy looks more like a freak accident than proof of school negligence.
But the family argues that football’s inherent risks aren’t the issue.
Instead, they allege the district failed to properly address dangers that could have been controlled.
Hernandez said defective or improperly fitted equipment can fall outside the ordinary risks a player agrees to accept.
He also pointed to supervision and emergency medical response as responsibilities of the district rather than risks an athlete assumes by playing.
Concussion procedures could also become an issue, Hernandez said.
Clearing an injured athlete to continue playing — or failing to have proper return-to-play procedures — is a matter of supervision and training, Hernandez said, rather than an inherent risk of football.
“So the legal question in the Garcia case is not whether tackling is dangerous. It obviously is, and everyone accepts that,” Hernandez said.
The question is whether LAUSD’s alleged failures involving the field, equipment, medical response and safety protocols pushed Christopher’s risk beyond what he accepted when he suited up.
For his family, the lawsuit is about more than what happened on one football field.
“Our main thing is we just don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” Christopher’s brother said during Monday’s press conference. “It’s terrible.”
Christopher’s sister, Kimberly Garcia, wiped away tears as she remembered him.
“He was the funniest kid you’ll ever meet. He was so sweet, caring,” she said.
The Post reached out to LAUSD for comment.
