Comment on the confirmation of the guilty verdict.
Comment on the confirmation of the guilty verdict and a message from the family of the victim
On April 30 2014 the Nagano District Court found a former judo instructor guilty of professional negligence leading to severe disabilities of a 12 year old boy. Neither the defendant nor the attorney designated as the prosecutor appealed the ruling by the deadline of May 14, therefore the verdict is now confirmed. It is a court decision with significant bearing in the judo community.
The following sections are the comments by Japan Judo Accident Victims Association (JJAVA) on the ruling and a message from the victim’s mother.
Judgment of guilty in the criminal trial of a judo incident
In a criminal trial the plaintiff is charged with the burden of proof and unless it is capable of demonstrating that the defendant is guilty based on strong evidence, the defendant will be treated as “innocent until proven guilty.” In this case it was demonstrated that while the victim was a beginner, lacking in skill and size, the instructor threw the boy with Kataeri Tai Otoshi (Single lapel body drop throw), an advanced skill, to severely injure him, which indicated that there was major negligence on the part of the defendant.
The defendant asserted his innocence describing that “I threw him carefully not to hit his head on the floor. Acceleration injury was not known in general at the time, therefore it was impossible to predict the outcome.” The claim was denied. The presiding judge found that despite the defendant’s lack of knowledge of acceleration injury, it was easy to predict what would happen if one threw a young, small and less skilled person without any control of one’s force, and major negligence was approved. Furthermore the judge mentioned the trend to instruct judo without adequate consideration of safety in the judo community. This is a strong reminder of the importance of safety for Japanese judo instructors and instructors of other sports.
It was the first case in Japan that the prosecutor’s decision to drop the case faced mandatory indictment based on the decision of a lay prosecution committee and given a guilty verdict. The members of JJAVA and other victims of judo incidents in Japan are delighted to see this breakthrough court decision with dramatic implication. Dismissals were the main results in judo accident criminal cases in the past.
JJAVA was established by the families of judo incident victims, who were still overcoming anger and sorrow of things that had happened. We are, however, happy that our efforts have contributed to the progress in the search for safety in judo.
For judo to remain a viable sport in our country, all judo instructors must break away from the training methods that lack safety consideration, and change to teaching judo that is fun, safe and exciting for all children and young people.
While it is not fundamental to enhance safety through a guilty verdict, all judo instructors should sincerely accept the implication of this ruling to reexamine their safety measures and avoid relying on violent force or abuse. It is our sincere hope that serious accidents will never again take place in the judo community in Japan.
May 20, 2014
Japan Judo Accident Victims Association
A message from the family of the victim
“I don’t know how it happened.” These are the words of my son’s former judo coach, the defendant, about what happened on the day of the incident. My son, who was thrown down by the coach and now is paralyzed with impaired consciousness, would have liked to cry out those words himself.
In the six years since the incident happened, there were the civil trial, the prosecution committee and the criminal trial, and one question stayed in my mind.
In June 2010 Japan Judo Accident Victims Association held the first symposium under the title of “Judo Accident and Brain Injuries”. In the symposium the judo community learned the word “rotational acceleration injury” for the first time, and since no such medical information existed in the judo community before the symposium, instructors were unable to know before June 2010 that a player could suffer brain injury without hitting their head. Therefore force majeure was claimed by the defendant in cases of judo accidents.
The reasons by the prosecution to drop our case included these words.
I felt it was odd that if the defendant did not know the mechanism of development of the victim’s injury it would be “force majeure”, and “duty of care” could not be required. I thought about this question hundreds of times in the last 6 years.
The court decision on April 30, 2014 stated that “We could not say that if details of the development of the mechanism of the injury could not be predicted, duty of care would not be exercised. It would be easily predicted that if an immature individual lacking skill and physical size is thrown with strong force and hits the mat, unreasonable force would apply to many parts of the body and that damage could be caused.” The decision admitted what I regarded as the most difficult element of the case.
In 1973 a first-grade high-school student in Iwate Prefecture developed acute subdural hematoma in a judo accident. This case from 40 years ago also disputed whether or not the instructor could predict acute subdural hematoma. The lawsuit was brought to stop similar accidents in the future.
A trial is mentally demanding for the victims and the family.
What we need is a society in which the person who caused damage will apologize and stop preventable accidents from ever occurring again.
I will continue with the best of my ability to work to build an environment where sports are taught with children’s safety in mind.
In closing I wish to thank judoists who helped us with their expert knowledge on the use of force in teaching judo and the effects of the difference in skill and size.
Mother of the victim of Matsumoto judo accident
