Pennsylvania's no-duty rule reached a disease diagnosed decades after the game.

The Superior Court affirmed nonsuit after the plaintiffs rested

The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed judgment for the NCAA after an eight-day jury trial ended on a compulsory nonsuit, before the jury weighed causation. In Schretzman v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2026 PA Super 203, No. 2883 EDA 2024, the court held that Pennsylvania's no-duty rule barred the negligence claim because head impacts are an inherent risk of football.

The opinion was filed September 16, 2026, and is precedential. The panel was Judge Stabile, Judge Lane and Stevens, P.J.E., a former justice specially assigned to the Superior Court. Judge Lane wrote the opinion. No dissent is noted.

Charles Schretzman attended the U.S. Military Academy from 1985 to 1989 and played intercollegiate football there. West Point is an NCAA member institution. Schretzman testified that approximately 15 to 20 times each year, after a hit, he saw stars, heard ringing, felt dizzy or unsteady, and received no warning that those symptoms could indicate concussions or that college football could increase his risk of ALS.

He served in the Army from 1990 to 2015. His symptoms began in 2012 while he was serving in Afghanistan. In April 2015, at age 48, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The court treated the impact as the relevant risk

Schretzman and his wife, Stacy Schretzman, filed a complaint in December 2019 alleging negligence and loss of consortium. An earlier complaint filed in 2018 had been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, and the same claims were refiled. They alleged that the NCAA assumed a duty to protect athletes at member schools, knew or should have known about the long-term dangers of concussions and sub-concussive blows, and failed to warn.

Trial began in August 2024. Schretzman's treating neurologist testified that the head impacts at West Point increased his risk of ALS, but said he could not separate the risks associated with football from those associated with military service. A retained expert testified that football at West Point was a cause of the disease.

After the plaintiffs rested on the eighth day of trial, the NCAA orally moved for compulsory nonsuit. The trial court granted the motion on two grounds: the NCAA owed no duty, and the plaintiffs had failed to prove causation. Judgment was entered October 1, 2024.

The Superior Court addressed only the duty question. It applied the no-duty rule, under which a defendant owes no duty to warn, protect or insure against risks that are common, frequent and expected, and inherent in an activity. When the rule applies, a plaintiff cannot establish a prima facie negligence case.

The court relied on Jones v. Three Rivers Management Corp., 394 A.2d 546 (Pa. 1978), which involved a spectator struck by a baseball at a Pittsburgh Pirates game. It also relied on Bowser v. Hershey Baseball Association, 516 A.2d 61 (Pa. Super. 1986), involving a coach struck in the eye by a batted ball, and Craig v. Amateur Softball Association of America, 951 A.2d 372 (Pa. Super. 2008), involving an unhelmeted softball player struck in the head.

Craig supplied the controlling distinction. The relevant risk is the event, such as being struck by a ball, rather than the injury that follows. The Superior Court applied that reasoning to the football impacts alleged here.

A later ALS diagnosis did not change the duty analysis

The plaintiffs argued that latent disease belongs in a different category from an observable football hit. ALS appeared decades after Schretzman played at West Point, they argued, and later NCAA concussion protocols showed that head injuries could be reduced without changing the sport.

The court rejected that framing. The plaintiffs did not dispute that head impacts themselves are common and inherent in football. Under Craig, the relevant risk was the head impact, not ALS or another later consequence. The court found nothing in Craig extending relief to an injury that had not yet manifested.

The plaintiffs also argued that the court should consider Schretzman's personal knowledge under assumption-of-risk principles and Restatement (Second) of Torts § 496D. They maintained that he did not know or appreciate the risk of a later neurodegenerative disease.

That argument also failed. The court said the risk of future neurological conditions was not relevant to the no-duty analysis. The rule therefore did not turn on whether Schretzman personally understood the long-term consequences of the impacts he experienced.

Before publication, the Archivar editorial desk read the full 19-page slip opinion rather than a summary. The desk noted that the duty analysis rests on Jones, Bowser andCraig, all of which involved baseball or softball, and that the court acknowledged those authorities did not involve football. The desk also noted that the nonsuit motion came on the eighth day of trial, after the plaintiffs rested.

The voluntary-undertaking theory did not avoid the rule

The plaintiffs separately invoked Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323, which addresses negligent performance of an undertaking. They cited the NCAA's history, medical committees and safety handbooks, and relied on Feleccia v. Lackawanna College, 215 A.3d 3 (Pa. 2019), to argue that the NCAA assumed a duty.

The Superior Court held that the no-duty rule still applied. On this record, the NCAA had no duty to warn, protect or insure against the common and frequent risk of head injuries. The asserted undertaking did not override that rule.

Because the court found no duty, it did not reach causation. The opinion therefore does not decide whether the West Point football impacts caused Schretzman's ALS, how the risks from football and military service should be separated, or whether the plaintiffs' experts established that connection.

The court also did not address risks that are not inherent in the sport. Jones limited the rule to inherent risks, and the Superior Court's holding concerned the head impacts alleged in this case.

The opinion binds Pennsylvania trial courts on this rule

Whether a duty exists is a question of law for the court. In practice, that means the framing of the risk can determine whether a sports-injury claim reaches the jury. Here, characterizing the claim as one involving a latent disease rather than the football impacts did not remove it from the no-duty rule.

The rule was objective in this application. Schretzman's lack of awareness of the long-term consequences did not alter the result. A § 323 theory against the NCAA also did not displace the rule.

After oral argument, the NCAA brought two recent decisions to the panel's attention: Riggs v. NCAA (2026), an Indiana Court of Appeals opinion, and Berton v. NCAA (2026), an unpublished Superior Court memorandum. The court said the Indiana decision was persuasive only, not binding. It noted that Pa.R.A.P. 126(b) permits citation of unpublished, non-precedential Superior Court memoranda filed after May 1, 2019 for persuasive value, but found Berton unpersuasive because it was decided on statute of limitations grounds rather than the no-duty rule.

The opinion is precedential and binds Pennsylvania trial courts. The Superior Court said it was "bound under Pennsylvania's no-duty negligence rule." It expressed sympathy for Schretzman's condition while holding that the applicable precedent constrained the result.

Archivar, which publishes The Docket, is an operating system for law firms that answers every call 24/7 in English and Spanish, runs intake, manages matters and remembers everything the firm does. In a case like this, the matter record includes dates separated by decades: play from 1985 to 1989, symptoms in 2012, diagnosis in April 2015, a 2018 filing and a 2019 refiling.

The Superior Court held that Pennsylvania's no-duty rule barred the Schretzmans' negligence claim because the alleged football head impacts were inherent risks, and it affirmed the judgment of nonsuit.

In Pennsylvania, the no-duty rule looks at the hit, not at the diagnosis that comes decades later.

A player's own awareness of long-term risk did not enter the analysis.

Causation, and risks that are not inherent in the sport, remain undecided by this opinion.