Brisson v. Minneapolis Baseball & Athletic Ass'n
| Decision Date | 18 March 1932 |
| Docket Number | No. 28742.,28742. |
| Citation | 185 Minn. 507,240 N.W. 903 |
| Parties | BRISSON v. MINNEAPOLIS BASEBALL & ATHLETIC ASS'N. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Hennepin County; H. D. Dickinson, Judge.
Action by Nap Brisson against the Minneapolis Baseball & Athletic Association, a corporation. Verdict for the plaintiff. From an order denying its alternative motion for judgment or for a new trial, defendant appeals.
Order reversed, and case remanded, with directions.
Jackson, Walsh & Yackel, of St. Paul, for appellant.
Olof L. Bruce and L. O. Johnson, both of Minneapolis, for respondent.
Plaintiff had a verdict for injuries received while he was a spectator at one of the league games played in defendant's park. The defendant appealed from the order denying its alternative motion for judgment or a new trial.
For the game at which he was hurt plaintiff bought a ticket for a grand-stand seat, but asserts that such seats were all filled when he arrived, and that he followed a part of the crowd to temporary seats located outside the foul line behind third base. A part of the grand stand was screened. The bleachers and the temporary seats were not. Some time in the sixth inning a foul ball was batted toward these temporary seats and, after striking the ground, struck plaintiff in the head, causing his injuries. He claims to have been ignorant of the risks to which he was exposed by the game, with which, he said, he was unfamiliar. As a small boy he had witnessed ball games and as an adult he had recently witnessed at least one league game.
There are very few cases where the courts have passed upon the liability of proprietors of ball parks to spectators injured by the ordinary playing of the game of baseball. In our own court, the case of Wells v. Minneapolis Baseball Ass'n, 122 Minn. 327, 142 N. W. 706, 46 L. R. A. (N. S.) 606, Ann. Cas. 1914D, 922, appears to be the only such case. Crane v. Kansas City Baseball and Exhibition Co., 168 Mo. App. 301, 153 S. W. 1076, and Kavafian v. Seattle Baseball Club Ass'n, 105 Wash. 215, 177 P. 776, 181 P. 679, are cases which have been brought to our attention. In the case of Cincinnati Baseball Club Co. v. Eno, 112 Ohio St. 175, 147 N. E. 86, 87, the plaintiff was injured by players who were practicing between the two games of a double-header, and was exposed to greater hazards than when the game was being played in the ordinary way. In Blakeley v. White Star Line, 154 Mich. 635, 118 N. W. 482, 19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 772, 129 Am. St. Rep. 496, the plaintiff was injured at an amusement park by a game of ball which was being played outside the regular diamond provided for that purpose. In the Missouri and Washington Cases the defendant was held not guilty of negligence where it provided both screened and unscreened seats, and where the plaintiff had a choice as to which he might occupy. In the Wells Case this court said that the perils of a ball game are not so imminent that due care requires that all the spectators be screened in and that the management cannot be held negligent when it provides a choice between a screened in and an open seat, the screen being sufficient as to extent and substance. In the case at bar we are confronted with the question as to whether the management must provide screened seats for all those who desire them, regardless of the number of spectators who come to see...
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