A New Jersey state appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to the New Jersey Devils, LLC and the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority (NJSEA), who were sued by a spectator after she was hit by a hockey puck during a Devils home game at Continental Airlines Arena.
The incident occurred on April 16, 2006. After watching the first period of play, plaintiff Sylvie Dumont left her seat and proceeded to the concession stand to purchase refreshments. She returned to her seat just prior to the beginning of the second period. After several minutes of play in the second period, Dumont reached down to place her empty food tray on the floor near her seat. As she did so, a puck left the ice and struck her on the right side of her face, causing injury. Dumont neither saw the puck coming, nor heard warnings from any spectators in the seats near her.
On April 7, 2008, Dumont filed a personal injury negligence complaint against the defendants, alleging that defendants had breached their duty of care by failing to protect her from all known and foreseeable hazards existing on the premises during a professional hockey game, including “protecting [her] from hazards due to dangerous hockey pucks, providing screening in the most dangerous area of the spectator seating, offering sufficient protected seating to those like [Dumont] who would seek it, warning [her] of known or foreseeable hazards, advising [Dumont] of the option to exchange her seat to a protected location,” or otherwise safeguarding her “in situations where hockey pucks leave the playing area and enter into spectator areas.”
After the close of discovery, defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, contending that they had complied with their limited duty of care by providing seating sufficient to accommodate any patron who may reasonably have anticipated, or desired, protected screened seating in the most dangerous sections of the stands, citing Sciarrotta v. Global Spectrum, 194 N.J. 345, 348, 944 A.2d 630 (2008). The defendants’ motion was supported by certification of Christopher Modrzynski, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Devils. Modrzynski certified to the protective measures provided at the hockey rink and to the Devils’ policy that the team would accommodate any patron who expressed a concern about sitting in an unprotected area of the arena by either relocating the patron to a protected area or by offering the patron a ticket refund.
On June 26, 2009, the trial court granted the defendants’ summary judgment motion, determining that the plaintiff’s complaint “was governed by the principles enunciated in Sciarrotta and Schneider v. Am. Hockey and Ice Skating Ctr., Inc., 342 N.J. Super. 527, 534, 777 A.2d 380 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 170 N.J. 387, 788 A.2d 772 (2001).”
The appeals court reviewed the assumptions of the trial court, noting that the ice rink at the arena contained the appropriate sideboards with Plexiglass protection required of all NHL ice rinks. The arena also contained protective netting both behind the goals and to the sides of the goals at opposite ends of the ice rink. The netting extended to the corners on each side of each goal as required by the NHL. Dumont sat in what was described as the “Gold Circle Member” seats located behind the Devil’s team bench at the center ice area of the stands, a distance from the goals. The seat was located above the Plexiglass protective barrier, beyond the areas of the rink protected by the netting that extends above the Plexiglass.
Next, the panel reviewed the Dumont’s argument that the defendants “breached their duty of care by failing to notify her ‘of the option to change seats because of the risk of flying hockey pucks,’ and that a material question of fact existed as to whether defendants had breached their duty of limited care because they had not undertaken a qualitative or quantitative risk assessment, or a comparative analysis identifying the high risk seating sections of the arena.”
The panel was unmoved, writing that it had considered the plaintiff’s arguments “in light of the record and applicable law” and concluded that “the arguments are without sufficient merit.”
Sylvie Dumont v., New Jersey Devils, New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority; Super Ct. N.J., App. Div.; DOCKET NO. A-5898-08T2, 2010 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2166; 9/1/10
Attorneys of Record: (for appellant) Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, P.C. (Terrence Smith, on the brief). (for respondent) Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP (Robert C. Neff, Jr., of counsel and on the brief). Zucker, Facher & Zucker, P.C. (Paul J. Soderman, on the brief).
