September 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 36

fifth inning, M.F. and her parents,
who had received their tickets as a
gift, were sitting a few rows behind
the visitor's dugout when a player hit
the foul ball that struck M.F.
In response to plaintiff 's negligence
claim, the Braves denied any liability,
stating that " their provision of netting only behind home plate amounted to ordinary care " under the traditional Baseball Rule. As a result, the
Braves filed a motion to dismiss or for
summary judgment. In so doing, the
Braves contended there was " no duty
as a matter of law to protect a spectator at a baseball game from being hit
by a foul ball. " If such a legal duty
existed, in the alternative, the Braves
contended it had satisfied the applicable legal duty, which was " limited
to protecting the seats behind home
plate and protecting a sufficient number of those seats to accommodate
the reasonably anticipated number of
requests for protected seats, " i.e., the
Baseball Rule.
After a hearing, the trial court
denied the motion. The Braves requested the appeals court to review
the trial court's ruling. In so doing,
the Braves argued that " the trial
court should have declared the socalled 'limited duty' or 'Baseball
Rule,' in effect in various states since
at least 1932 as Georgia law in this
context. " The appeals court, however, denied the Braves' motion for a
declaratory judgment. As a result,
assuming the claim is not settled,
the case would proceed to trial, presumably to consider liability based
upon ordinary principles governing
landowner liability for negligence.
In the meantime, if and until the
Georgia state supreme court rules
on the issue, the applicability of the
Baseball Rule in Georgia remains
uncertain.

Obvious Risks Assumed
In the absence of the limited legal
duty under the Baseball Rule, there is
a fear among owners and operators
of ballfields at all levels, from the major-league stadiums down to sandlot
baseball in public parks, that every
injury-causing foul ball entering the
unscreened spectator area could provide a legal basis for a potential lawsuit, creating a flood of litigation.

variation of this limited exception
to the no-duty rule for obvious and
inherent risks.
Although obvious and inherent
in the game of baseball, spectators
cannot reasonably be expected to
protect themselves from speeding
foul balls entering the spectator area
directly behind home plate. Unlike
other areas of the ballpark, it is unrealistic to expect a spectator to re-

Traditionally, under the Baseball Rule, the legal duty
of landowners owed to spectators has been limited to
providing protection in the " zone of danger " behind
home plate.

The limited legal duty under the
traditional Baseball Rule can also be
viewed as consistent with general legal principles governing landowner
liability. Generally, landowners owe
no legal duty to protect participants,
including spectators, against open
and obvious risks on the premises or
risks inherent in a given activity. Participants are deemed to have assumed
the risk of injury related to such obvious or inherent risks. Assumption of
risk, however, presumes that the participants, looking out reasonably for
their own safety, are able to choose
whether or not to avoid or protect
themselves against apparent risks.
Accordingly, a limited exception
exists for situations in which participants are unable to protect themselves from an obvious and inherent
risk. Under such circumstances, a
landowner may still owe a limited
duty to protect participants against
such risks of injury. The Baseball
Rule can be viewed as a specific

act in time and " get out of the way "
of a foul ball in the zone of danger
behind home plate. As a result, the
Baseball Rule imposes a limited legal
duty of care on the owner/operator
to provide protective screening, but
only behind home plate. Accordingly, spectators who choose or prefer
an unobstructed view of the contest
down the baselines have traditionally
assumed the risk of injury from being
struck by foul balls.
The Baseball Rule has also been
applied to other sports and activities where spectators are realistically
unable to protect themselves against
serious injury associated with obvious and inherent risks. For example,
courts have extended the reasoning
of the Baseball Rule to include hockey, where the risk of serious injury
requiring protective screening is behind each goal. Within the broader
context of the Baseball Rule, protective screening in other sports and activities is, therefore, limited to those

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September 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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