Washington, Sep 8, 2004 -

Today during a House Judiciary Committee markup, U.S. Representative John R. Carter (TX-31) urged his colleagues to support the Nonprofit Athletic Organization Protection Act, legislation that would reduce the growing number of lawsuits against a range of nonprofit youth and high school athletic rule making bodies.

"As we know, almost all athletic competition carries risks to those who participate. What we could not have known is that the very volunteer organizations that seek to minimize these risks would become the targets of costly, protracted, and often frivolous litigation," said Carter, a State District Judge for 20 years.

Recently, one Little League organization chose to avoid the threat of massive damages by settling a claim by a parent who was hit by a ball her own child failed to catch. In another example, lawyers for a youth who suffered an injury in a volunteer-supervised Boy Scout game of touch football filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the adult supervisors and the Boy Scouts of America.

Carter, whose son is a baseball coach, finished his remarks by saying, "This legislation is a narrowly-tailored, common sense remedy to a very serious and growing threat to volunteer athletic organizations."

The legislation, H.R. 3369, was passed out of committee and will now await consideration by the full House.