By Ed Edmonds
Thursday, June 29, 2017, is a date that Dustin Fowler will never forget. Fowler made his major league debut that evening playing right field for the New York Yankees against the Chicago White Sox in a game at Guaranteed Rate Field. After flying from Syracuse to join his major league teammates, Fowler battled traffic from O’Hare International Airport to arrive at the ballpark about 2 hours and 30 minutes before the scheduled first pitch. The start of game was subsequently delayed for 2 hours and 50 minutes by heavy thundershowers that rolled through Chicago that evening. After the Yankees scored in the top of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead, Fowler took his position in right field. Yankees starter Luis Cessa retired the first two White Sox batters before José Abreu lined Cessa’s third pitch down the right field line. Fowler sprinted towards the ball as it sliced foul towards the seats. The ball eluded Fowler’s grasp, and he crashed into a low wall and nearly flipped into the first row of seats. Unfortunately, he also slammed his right knee into an unpadded, exposed metal box that supports Wi-Fi transmissions. Fowler tried to return to his position. He hopped on his left leg but quickly crumpled to the ground. Yankees manager Joe Girardi, center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, eventual right field replacement Rob Refsnyder, first base coach Tony Peña, and a member of the Yankees medical staff all rushed to Fowler’s aid along the right field line. Girardi signaled for the cart to take Fowler from the field. He was taken to Rush University Medical Center where White Sox team physician Dr. Charles A. Bush-Joseph performed the operation to successfully repair the player’s ruptured patellur tendon. Fowler’s season was over before he even had a chance to bat at the beginning of the next inning.
Girardi was obviously shaken by the incident — “I was in tears, actually . . . I’m still in disbelief. I’m in tears for the kid. I know he’ll fight and get back here, but he’s out for a while and he has to go through a long, grueling rehab. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
Fowler, one of the Yankees top prospects, was upbeat after the surgery: “Everything is as good as it can be right now,” Fowler told the New York Post. “The surgery went well. That’s always a plus. I’m just going to take it day to day right now. It ruptured, but they were able to put it back in place and there wasn’t any other issues, so they said it’s going to be a pretty positive recovery. They said I’d be out for about four or five months and then be ready for the spring.” The Yankees, however, in search for additional pitching strength as they battled for a playoff position during the second half of the season, traded Fowler and minor leaguers James Kaprielian and Jorge Mateo on July 31, barely a month after the injury, to the Oakland Athletics for Sonny Gray and international bonus slot money.
After reflecting on the circumstances surrounding his unfortunate injury, Fowler ultimately decided to file a negligence lawsuit against the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the state governmental agency that is responsible for Guaranteed Rate Field, and the Chicago White Sox. The complaint was filed on December 15, 2017, in Cook County Circuit Court. Fowler is represented by John Bailly of Bailly & McMillan, LLP, in White Plains, New York, and Michael J. Sorich of the Cavanagh Law Group in Chicago (Local Rule 707 Counsel).
Fowler’s counsel asserted in the complaint that “the exposed box was positioned at a hazardous location between the padded right field wall and the padded rail, at the player’s knee level” creating “an extremely hazardous condition hidden from the player’s view.” This was particularly significant in Fowler’s situation because Guaranteed Rate Field is not his home ballpark. As a rookie in his first game at the stadium, he had a limited opportunity to discover any unusual aspects of the playing field. The complaint does not specifically discuss any changes in normal playing condition based upon the rain that delayed the start of the game and an analysis of the video of the incident and the commentary of the announcers does not indicate that Fowler’s injury was impacted by a slippery surface.
Fowler’s minor league career presents another interesting factual scenario surrounding his injury — Fowler’s minor league experience during the 2016 and 2017 season was primarily as a center fielder. Fowler played 70 games for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders before his promotion to the Yankees on June 29, the day of his injury, in a number of roster moves by the Yankees. Fowler primarily played center field (40 games) for the RailRiders, but he did play 14 games each in both left and right field. He played 119 of his 132 games for Trenton in 2016 in centerfield. Thus, Fowler’s chief concern involved the center field wall behind his normal playing condition and not the possibility of running into any obstructions in foul territory as he was sprinting towards a line drive in foul territory. As with the conditions of the field, counsel did not raise these factors in the complaint.
Ultimately Fowler’s counsel claimed that “as a result of the negligent, grossly negligent, reckless, willful and wanton conduct of the Defendants” Fowler “sustained past lost earnings and potential future lost earnings, pain and suffering and medical expenses.” The complaint does not quantify the amount of the lost earnings or medical expenses endured by Fowler. Typically, when a major league baseball player is injured during the course of a game, the medical expenses for surgery and the cost of rehabilitation are covered by the team. Fowler was placed on the 10-day disabled list on June 30. The following day, he was transferred to the 60-day disabled list. In both instances, he was listed as a center fielder. Fowler accumulated 0.095 years of service time over the course of the remainder of the 2017 season.
In paragraphs 25 and 33 of the complaint, Fowler’s attorneys listed six factors that contributed to either negligence, gross negligence, or recklessness by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority and the Chicago White Sox. The most telling of the six assertions appears to be the final one — “(f) In failing to pad, guard, cover and/or protect the exposed box in any way, with knowledge that it was foreseeable that persons such as Plaintiff would come into contact with the walls at high rates of speed,” the two defendants “engaged in a course of action indicating an utter indifference to or conscious disregard for the safety of the Plaintiff.”
A similar case involving the Yankees and White Sox took place on June 13, 1975. Center fielder Elliott Maddox injured his right knee while fielding ball and attempting to throw the ball back to the infield. Unlike this case, the incident happened in New York instead of Chicago, but Maddox’s injury, like Fowler, cost him the remainder of the 1975 and much of the following season. The Yankees were playing in the Shea Stadium, their temporary home park, while Yankee Stadium was being renovated. The previous night’s game had been cancelled due to rain and standing water. The wet conditions still existed, and Maddox mentioned this to his manager and the ground crew, but he still agreed to play in the game.
Maddox sued the City of New York and the Thomas Crimmins Contracting Company in New York state courts. Thus, the case was tried in New York and not Illinois, so it is not a precedent with much authority in Fowler’s lawsuit. Over a decade later in 1985, the Court of Appeals of New York determined that Maddox assumed the risk as a matter of law by playing on the wet surface and the case against the defendants should have been dismissed on a summary judgment motion. The Court of Appeals rendered its opinion despite the enactment of N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 1411, a comparative fault statute, nearly a decade earlier. Like many states, New York still recognizes express assumption of risk.
While Fowler waits to see the result of his lawsuit, he has returned to play for the Athletics. On Sunday, February 25, Fowler participated in his first game since his injury at Guaranteed Rate Field. He batted leadoff and played center field in a Cactus League game against the Kansas City Royals with the hope of making the starting lineup on Opening Day. In his first game since the injury, Fowler grounded out in his first at-bat but walked and singled before leaving the game. He even fouled a ball off of his reconstructed right knee with no ill effect.
Sources:
Bryan Hoch, “Fowler’s Season Ends in 1st Inning of Debut,” MLB.com, June 30, 2017.
Bryan Hoch, “Yanks FaceTime with Fowler After Surgery,” MLB.com, June 30 2017.
Maddox v. New York Yankees, 487 N.E.2d 553 (N.Y. 1985).
Michael McCann, “Analyzing Dustin Fowler’s Lawsuit Against the Chicago White Sox,” SI.com, January 23, 2018.
Janie McCauley, Associated Press, “A’s Center Fielder Suing White Sox Making Progress From Knee Surgery,” Chicago Tribune, February 17, 2018.
Susan Slusser, “Back From Knee Injury, A’s Dustin Fowler Makes ‘Really Good Impression,’” San Francisco Chronicle, February 25, 2018.
Ed Edmonds joined the Notre Dame Law School as director of the Kresge Law Library and professor of law in July 2006. Edmonds retired from the Kresge Law Library in December 2016.
Edmonds currently teaches Sports Law Seminar, and he has previously taught advanced legal research, antitrust law, criminal law, and entertainment law. Edmonds primary scholarly interests involves antitrust and labor issues involving baseball. In particular, he has written and spoken about the trilogy of United States Supreme Court cases (Federal Baseball v. National League, Toolson v. New York Yankees, and Flood v. Kuhn) that created baseball antitrust exemption. He is the co-editor of the Hein’s Sports Law Legislative History Series and is currently conducting extensive research on baseball salary arbitration. In recent years, Edmonds has been a regular speaker at the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture and the Annual Spring Training Conference on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball sponsored by Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.
