## Facts

- Randal C. Overall and Steven Kadella played on opposing amateur hockey teams in Michigan.
- After the game ended, a fight broke out and expanded as players left their benches to join the melee.
- During the post-game fight, Kadella struck Overall, knocking him unconscious and fracturing bones around Overall’s right eye, causing pain, expenses, and permanent injury.
- Kadella claimed he was attacked from behind and with a hockey stick and that he threw a single retaliatory punch without knowing whom he struck.
- Overall and witnesses testified Overall stayed on the bench away from the fight and did not strike or provoke anyone; they stated Kadella skated to the bench and hit Overall without provocation.
- Referees testified Kadella engaged in multiple post-game fights and received three game misconducts because fighting violated Michigan Amateur Hockey Association rules designed to prevent violence.
- Overall sued Kadella for battery; after removal from circuit court to the 48th District Court, the district court (bench trial) found an unprovoked, intentional, malicious attack and awarded $21,000 compensatory and $25,000 exemplary damages.

## Issues

1. Whether objections to venue and the district court’s authority to enter a judgment exceeding the usual district-court monetary limit were preserved and valid after removal from circuit court.
2. Whether participation in an amateur hockey game impliedly consented to the intentional contact inflicted, barring liability for battery.
3. Whether the evidence required rejection of battery liability because Kadella acted in self-defense.

## Decision

- The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment for Overall.
- Venue objections were waived by failure to timely object, and the district court had statutory authority to award the full damages amount after removal from circuit court.
- The trial court’s findings that Overall was not engaged in the fight, that the attack was unprovoked, and that Kadella acted intentionally and maliciously were not clearly erroneous.
- Implied consent from playing hockey did not extend to a post-game assault outside the sport’s rules; the elements of battery were satisfied.
- Self-defense was properly rejected on the facts because the trial court found Overall did not attack Kadella and the blow was not justified.

## Legal Principles

- A party may waive a mandatory change of venue by failing to timely object.
- When an action is removed from circuit court to district court under applicable statute, the district court may enter judgment for damages exceeding ordinary district-court monetary limits.
- Participants in contact sports impliedly consent to contacts and risks that are reasonably foreseeable within the rules and ordinary play of the game.
- Implied consent does not extend to intentional violent acts that violate the sport’s safety rules or occur outside the scope of play; such conduct may constitute actionable battery.
- Appellate review defers to the trial court’s credibility determinations and factual findings unless clearly erroneous, including findings rejecting self-defense.

## Conclusion

The court upheld liability and compensatory and exemplary damages for a post-game hockey assault, holding that a player’s implied consent to sport-related contact does not cover an unprovoked, intentional attack that violates safety rules and falls outside ordinary play, and that procedural challenges to venue and damages authority failed.


Overall v. Kadella, 361 N.W.2d 352 (Mich. Ct. App. 1984)