Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 40 (2026)

Causing serious bodily injury to participants in physical exercise training programs; punishment

✓ current as of July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 40. Whoever, having the direct management or direct control over the conduct of physical exercise as part of a course of study or training program at any public or private institution, agency or entity, willfully, wantonly and recklessly causes serious bodily injury to a person participating in a course of study or training program involving physical exercise, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars or by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or both.

For the purposes of this section ''serious bodily injury'' shall mean bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death or which involves either total disability or the loss or substantial impairment of some bodily function for a substantial period of time.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 4 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1998–2022 · leading case: Butler v. O'BRIEN, 663 F.3d 514 (1st Cir. 2011).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

Butler v. O'BRIEN, 663 F.3d 514 (1st Cir. 2011). · cites it 2× “Further afield, the statute governing the offense of "causing serious bodily injury to participants in physical exercise training programs" defines "serious bodily injury" as harm that "creates a substantial risk of death or which involves either total disability or the loss or…”

Fournier v. Reardon, 160 F.3d 754 (1st Cir. 1998). “Fournier cites Massachusetts law, see Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 40 , 1 and *758 departmental regulations which govern the discipline of recruits in training programs, to found his claim of a § 1983 violation.”

Commonwealth v. J.G., 182 N.E.3d 1020 (Mass. App. Ct. 2022). “265, § 15D (injury to person by strangulation); G. L. c. 265, § 40 (injury to physical exercise program participant).”

Commonwealth v. McCourt, 767 N.E.2d 1067 (Mass. App. Ct. 2002). “90B, § 8A(3); and G. L. c. 265, § 40. Instead, the Commonwealth claims that sexual intercourse was part of a continuous episode that produced serious bodily injuries and thus was “committed with acts resulting in serious bodily injury” as the quoted phrase is used in G.”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.