(Editor’s Note: below is an excerpt from the most recent sports Litigation Alert, which features five case summaries and eight to ten articles in each issue. The Alert also provides subscribers the most exhaustive searchable archive of sports law material in the country.)
By John E. Tyrrell and Matthew S. Cioeta, of Ricci Tyrrell Johnson & Grey
In April of 2018, plaintiff/appellant Monica Mayes was attending her son’s collegiate baseball game between going to Marymount university (for whom her child was pitching) and La Sierra University, when she was struck in the face by a foul ball. Mayes v. La Sierra University, No. E076374 (Cal.App.4th. Jan. 7, 2022). Mayes was sitting in a grassy area behind the third base dugout when she was hit. Id. at 2. The roofing system of the dugout was eight feet off the ground, and there was no protective net or fencing above the dugout. Id.
Mayes made four allegations in her grievance alleging that La Sierra was negligent in maintaining the premises of the baseball field: (1) La Sierra failed to offer protection of any sort over its dugouts; (2) The university failed to caution spectators of the lack of protection; (3) La Sierra failed to offer a sufficient number of protected seats for spectators; and (4) the school failed Camiseta Aston Villa FC to exercise proper crowd control. Id.
On appeal, the California Appellate Court considered whether the trial court erroneously given La Sierra’s motion for summary Judgment when it held that Mayes’s negligence claim was barred by the primary assumption of risk doctrine. Id. In support of its Motion, La Sierra provided the following facts: the university did not sell tickets nor charge admission to the game, and they did not dictate where spectators where they could or could not sit at games. Id. at 5. Mayes had previously attended over 300 of her sons’ baseball games and was familiar with the fact that baseballs frequently flew into spectator areas. Id. because 2009, there had been no reported spectator injuries caused by baseballs hit out of the playing field at La Sierra. Id.
Additionally, La Sierra asserted that it provided portable bleachers for seating, which were behind home plate and a protective backstop and available for any spectator. Id. La Sierra did not ask any of the spectators in the turf along the baselines to take down their tents or umbrellas, nor did it request spectators to sit behind the backstop. Id. Camiseta Olympique Lyonnais The university would only assist with crowd control if the game’s umpire requested it. Id. Furthermore, Camiseta Selección de fútbol de Irán there was no requirement for a California Pacific conference member or a national association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) institution to put protective netting over the dugouts. Id.
In response, Mayes offered, while there were bleachers behind the backstop at home plate, there was only one seat available and “the bleachers were on a hilly, rocky, and dirt-covered area. The dirt was blowing around and making it ‘potentially dangerous’ to sit in that area.” Id. at 6. Mayes and her husband proceeded to set up their folding chairs in the turf along the third base line, where hundreds of other spectators had done the same, roughly 60 feet from the playing field. Id. at 6-7. There were no posted signs recommending the crowd that they had the option to ask La Sierra’s athletic director or the umpire to control the crowd. Id. at 6.
Mayes had been to hundreds of her sons’ baseball games over the previous 15 years, and was not concerned for her safety because she assumed that La Sierra had protective netting over the dugouts like every other field she had been. Id. at 7. She had never seen a spectator struck in the face by a ball. Id.
Mayes provided expert opinion testimony from a ballpark safety and management expert.
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