Plaintiff, a 40-year-old woman in her first year at the county's community college, enrolled in a backpacking course to satisfy the school's physical education requirement. Plaintiff testified that she thought it would be the least strenuous of the several courses available. In the session at issue, students were divided into two teams, and the gym instructor directed them to perform a number of activities, one of which plaintiff had never heard of, much less participated in. As part of the activity, a rope was tied to the back of two folding chairs and the instructor told the students that each team member had to go over the rope without touching it. If any team member touched the rope, the team had to start over. Team members were also instructed that each of them had to remain in physical contact with another team member while clearing the rope.

After plaintiff made several unsuccessful attempts to clear the rope on her own, she told her teammates that she could not do it and that they should continue without her. The gym instructor, who had been watching from the back of the room, approached the members of plaintiff's team, and, pointing to the other team, said, "Let me give you a hint." One member of the other team was positioned so that his left knee was on the floor and his right knee was extended and parallel to the floor. His teammates were using the upper part of his right leg as a prop to step over the rope. Plaintiff's team tried it, but, in executing the step, plaintiff lost her balance, and her foot slammed to the floor, resulting in leg and ankle fractures.

The Second Department denied defendant's summary judgment motion, in Calouri v. County of Suffolk, which was decided on August 21, 2007. The court noted that, under the doctrine of assumption of the risk, a voluntary participant is deemed to have consented to any apparent or reasonably foreseeable consequences of engaging in a sport. However, "[u]nder these circumstances, where the plaintiff was a neophyte with regard to the activity she was directed to perform, the doctrine of assumption of risk should not be applied with the same force as in the case of an experienced athlete. The relationship between the gym instructor, on the one hand, and the plaintiff, a complete novice, on the other, was such that, for all intents and purposes, the gym instructor was the plaintiff's superior whose directions she was obliged to follow. Accordingly, a triable issue of fact exists as to whether the plaintiff acted voluntarily in attempting the strategy suggested by the gym instructor and whether the doctrine of assumption of risk applies to this case."