Can I File a Claim for a Paintball-Related Injury?

Paintball, a popular game that simulates military combat using capsules of paint shot out of air guns, may be more dangerous than players realize. While millions of people around the globe enjoy paintball as a fun and exhilarating activity, the safety of the sport is heavily debated. The air guns shoot the dye-filled oil and gelatin paintballs at high speeds using compressed air. Paintballs can cause serious eye injuries, blinding, and even death. Most areas that offer regulated paintball matches require safety gear, such as protective face masks, but not everyone adheres to these rules.

A statistics brief by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project found that on average 56 people visit the emergency room from air and paintball gun injuries every day. Males are five times more likely than females to visit the emergency room with these injuries. About 60% of these visits are children ages 17 and younger. The most common injuries from paintball and air guns are open wounds and superficial injuries, followed by eye disorders. The study found that injuries from air and paintball guns resemble those from conventional firearm pistols.

When projected from a paintball gun, the dye-filled pellets can travel up to 200 miles per hour. Paintballing often causes minor injuries such as bruising, cuts, and welts, as well as sports-related injuries such as sprains or shortness of breath. Serious eye injuries from paintball include painful bleeding in the eye (vitreous hemorrhages or hyphema), detached retinas, corneal abrasions, cataracts, and bruising and swelling of the retina (commotio retina). These eye problems are serious and can result in temporary or permanent blindness.

Paintball can also cause serious ear issues from being shot in the ear at close range. Paintballs shot dangerously near or in the ear can result in ruptured eardrums, ringing in the ear (tinnitus), permanent damage and disfigurement to outer ear cartilage (cauliflower ear), a concussion, and partial or total loss of hearing. In 2004, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning for paintball guns after two people died from being hit in the head by pressurized carbon dioxide cylinders from the guns.

Paintball-related injuries can stem from a defective product, intentionally violent act from another player, or a paintball course owner’s negligence. Determining whether you can file a claim against a party for your paintball injury depends on the cause of your accident. If a defective or dangerous paintball gun, mask, or pellet caused your injury, you may have a case of product liability against the manufacturer or distributor. In one of the cases resulting in the CPSC warning, the husband of a woman who died sued the paintball gun manufacturers for the defect that caused the cylinder to pop off the gun and strike his wife.

If a person’s intentional act of violence, such as purposefully hitting you in the eye with the paintball, caused your injury, you may have an assault and battery personal injury claim. In this kind of case, you could seek compensation from the offender in an intentional tort case in civil court. In cases where a property owner or manager is responsible for your injuries, your case would take the shape of a premises liability lawsuit. The facility owner where you were playing regulated paintball may have ignored a dangerous condition that caused your accident or failed to provide the proper safety equipment to prevent a serious eye or ear injury.

The circumstances of your paintball-related injury will determine what type of personal injury claim you may make against a defendant. Talk to a local attorney about your injury to find out if you have grounds for a lawsuit.

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