Mark Singletary, The Daily Record Newswire
An injured baseball fan usually has about as much chance of winning a negligence suit as my Cleveland Indians have of winning a World Series.
But the Idaho Supreme Court just gave the go ahead to the personal injury action of a spectator who lost an eye to a foul ball.
The injured fan is Bud Rountree, a proud season ticket holder of the Boise Hawks for over 20 years. On Aug. 13, 2008, Rountree took his wife and two grandchildren to a Hawks game at Memorial Stadium in Garden City. During the game, Rountree and his party went to the park’s “Executive Club” for a few refreshments.
According to court records, the Executive Club is protected from foul balls from above by horizontal mesh netting. However, it happens to be one of the few areas of the park that is not protected from the field of play by vertical netting. Most portions of the stadium are protected by vertical mesh netting approximately 30 feet high.
While in the Executive Club, Rountree started talking to someone and stopped paying attention to the game. This was a surprising lapse in judgment for someone who had attended so many baseball games. Dads instruct us from an early age that you never take your eye off the action because you never know when a foul ball will come screaming your way.
But being in the Executive Club, perhaps we can forgive Rountree for feeling he was out of harm’s way.
He wasn’t, as luck would have it.
According to Rountree, while engaged in conversation in the Executive Club, he heard the roar of the crowd and turned his head back to the game, just in time to be struck by a foul ball. As a result, Rountree lost his eye.
In 2010, Rountree filed a negligence action in state court, suing the operator of the park, Boise Baseball, and related entities.
Boise Baseball’s defense was twofold. First, Boise Baseball argued that Rountree’s lawsuit was barred under the “Baseball Rule,” which limits the duty owed by stadium owners and operators to spectators hit by foul balls. Second, the park operator argued that Rountree had assumed the risk of his injuries.
Courts across the country, with rare exceptions, have regularly applied these theories to doom the lawsuits of injured baseball fans like Rountree. But the trial court in this case denied Boise Baseball’s motion for summary judgment.
Because of the novelty of the case, the Idaho Supreme Court agreed to take up Boise Baseball’s appeal before trial. The state high court decided Feb. 22 that the Baseball Rule does not apply in Idaho, and that primary assumption of the risk was not a valid defense to Rountree’s negligence claim.
Idaho Justice Jim Jones, writing for a unanimous court, explained why the court declined Boise Baseball’s invitation to adopt the Baseball Rule.
Jones wrote that there was no compelling policy reason to adopt such a rule because Boise Baseball failed to show that there was a fundamental link between baseball and spectator injuries.
“Boise Baseball admits that at least for ‘seven seasons [Rountree’s] accident is the only time a spectator has suffered a “major” injury because of a foul ball’ at Memorial Stadium,” observed Jones. “The rarity of these incidents weighs against crafting a special rule.”
Further, the justice said it was up to the state legislature to decide whether the Baseball Rule should be adopted.
“Declining to adopt the Baseball Rule leaves policy formulation to the deliberative body that is better positioned to consider the pros and cons of the issue,” Jones wrote.
Turning to the issue of whether Rountree assumed the risk of his injuries by attending a game in which foul balls are a known hazard, Jones said that “[a]llowing assumption of risk as an absolute bar is inconsistent with our comparative negligence system, whether the risks are inherent in an activity, or not.”
Instead, the justice said that the jury was in the best position to assess Rountree’s own responsibility for the loss of his eye.
“Whether a party participated in something inherently dangerous will simply inform the comparison, rather than wholly preclude it,” Jones wrote. “Here, whether watching baseball is inherently dangerous, and the degrees of fault to be apportioned to Rountree and Boise Baseball, are questions for the jury.”
