Hunt v. Thomasville Baseball Co

• Decision Date: 05 December 1949
• Docket Number: No. 32786.,32786.
• Citation: Hunt v. Thomasville Baseball Co, 56 S.E.2d 828, 80 Ga.App. 572 (Ga. App. 1949)
• Parties: HUNT. v. THOMASVILLE BASEBALL CO.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

56 S.E.2d 828

80 Ga.App. 572

HUNT.

v.THOMASVILLE BASEBALL CO.

No. 32786.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Dec. 5, 1949.

Action by R. M. Hunt against the Thomasville Baseball Company for personal injuries.

The Superior Court of Thomas County, George R. Lilly, J., sustained defendant's demurrer and plaintiff brought error.

The Court of Appeals, Townsend, J., held that the plaintiff, as a spectator at baseball game, assumed the risk of being struck by wild balls thrown and landing in unprotected areas of grandstand during pre-game practice and the game, and affirmed the judgment.

Syllabus by the Court.

Where a person wishing to witness a professional baseball game purchases a ticket and chooses or accepts a seat in a portion of the grandstand which is unprotected, he voluntarily assumes the risk inherent in such a position, he being presumed to know there is a likelihood of wild balls being thrown or batted into the grandstand thus unprotected. Where during the warm-up preliminary to playing such a professional baseball game a wild ball is thrown into that portion of the grandstand occupied by such spectator and he is injured, he cannot recover.

R. M. Hunt brought suit against the Thomasville Baseball Company for injuries alleged to have been received by him as a spectator in the Company's grandstand when he was struck by a wild ball during the warm-up period immediately preceding the game. The petition alleged that the plaintiff had purchased a ticket to witness the baseball game in said park, that he occupied a seat provided by the defendant in the grandstand, that there was no screen between the playing field and the grandstand, that his injuries resulted from the negligent throwing by one of the players of a baseball "in the general direction of first base, " but too high to be intercepted, that the player was in the scope of his employment, and that the defendant was negligent in not putting up a wire screen or other protection, in seating the public close together without any protection from the playing field, and negligent through its agent in throwing a ball, knowing that a high, wide ball so thrown would injure the plaintiff or some other member of the public within the grandstand. The defendant filed its general demurrer to this petition, which was sustained, and the plaintiff brings error.

C. F. Richter, Cairo, Louis H. Foster, Cairo, for plaintiff in error.

Franklin, Eberhardt & Barham, Valdosta, for defendant in error.

TOWNSEND, Judge (after stating the foregoing facts).

While this is the first case before the appellate courts of this State raising the question of liability to a spectator who is struck and injured by a ball negligently thrown at a baseball game, it involves a proposition which has been decided with a fair degree of unanimity in other jurisdictions. An examination of numerous cases concerned with the liability of an owner for injuries received by a spectator at a baseball game seated in the grandstand and injured by foul balls, flying bats and other like missiles leads us to concur with the majority view that one who buys a ticket for the purpose of witnessing a baseball game and who chooses or accepts a seat in a portion of the grandstand which his own observation will readily inform him is unprotected, voluntarily assumes the risks inherent in such a position, since he must be presumed to know that there is a likelihood of wild balls being thrown and landing in the grandstand or other unprotected areas. In Hudson v. Kansas City Baseball Club, 349 Mo. 1215, 164 S.W.2d 318, 323, 142 A.L.R. 858, 866, it was held: "In baseball the patron participates in the sport as a spectator only, but in so doing subjects himself to the dangers necessarily and usually incident to and inherent in the game. This does not mean that he 'assumes the risk' of being injured by the proprietor's negligence but that by voluntarily entering into the sport as a spectator he knowingly accepts the reasonable risks and hazards inherent in and incident to the game. Bohlen, Studies in The Law of Torts, pp. 441-44. * * The rules governing the land proprietor's duty to his invitee presuppose that the possessor knows of the condition and 'has no reason to believe that they (his invitees) will discover the condition or realize the risk involved therein.' 2 Restatement,...