By Ed Edmonds
On November 16, 2016, United States District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California dismissed a class action lawsuit against Major League Baseball, the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, and Commissioner Rob Manfred seeking additional screening extending from foul pole to foul pole and general safety improvements preventing fan injuries from foul balls, flying bats, broken pieces of bats, or thrown balls that enter the stands. For the past century, the majority of state courts have relied on a form of the “Baseball Rule” preventing fans from suing teams over injuries sustained at games so long as the area closest to home plate is properly screened.
The lead plaintiffs were Gail Payne, an Oakland A’s fan of nearly fifty years, and Stephanie Smith, who suffered a serious injury when she was struck by a foul ball while attending the Sunday, June 7, 2015, game at Dodger Stadium against the St. Louis Cardinals. Payne and Smith asserted six specific claims: “(1) negligence; (2) fraudulent concealment; (3) violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law . . . ; (4) violation of California Civil Code §§ 1750 . . . ; (5) violation of California Civil Code § 1668; and (6) personal injury.” The final claim involved Smith’s injury at Dodger Stadium. In particular, Payne’s unscreened seats in section 211, where she claimed that she was required to duck and weave to avoid being hit, became the focus of the court’s analysis. Section 211 is on the first base side in the plaza infield section of the second level at O.co Oakland Coliseum. Smith sustained her injury while sitting in field box 35 in Dodger Stadium, located beyond third base down the left field line, when she was hit in the stomach by a line drive foul ball. As a result of her injuries, she experienced a 10-15% collapsed lung, continual pain in her ribs, and significant medical expenses.
In their original complaint filed on July 13, 2015, Payne and other class members requested “injunctive relief requiring Defendants . . . to adopt corrective measures regarding . . . the implementation of (1) a rule requiring all existing major league and minor league . . . ballparks to be retrofitted to extend protective netting from foul pole to foul pole . . . ; (2) a rule requiring any newly constructed ballpark . . . to include at a minimum this amount of netting; (3) a program to study injuries . . . in an effort to continually reevaluate whether additional measures should be taken . . . .” To support their assertions, Payne’s counsel, Steve Berman and Anthea Grivas of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP in Seattle, Washington, relied heavily on David Glovin’s September 2014 Bloomberg article noting that 1,750 baseball fans annually suffer injuries at Major League Baseball games. Payne’s attorneys also cited the work of Robert Gorman and David Weeks who published Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game-Related Fatalities, 1862-2007 (2009). In fact, Gorman was added to the plaintiff class after the initial complaint was filed before he dropped out. Gorman offered many personal memories of foul ball incidents including his own injury at a Charlotte Knights minor league game and one sustained by his wife during a college baseball game.
In a preliminary action on April 8, 2016, Judge Gonzalez Rogers granted Major League Baseball’s request to dismiss all the Out-of-State teams for lack of personal jurisdiction but allowed the case to proceed to jurisdictional discovery on standing against the California-based teams. As noted by Judge Gonzalez Rogers in her November decision, that discovery addressed “‘the probability that a given individual, seated in plaintiffs’ specific sections at the two California stadiums in question, [would] be hit by a stray ball or bat in the course of a given game or season.’” This narrow focus for the statistical inquiry was a significant factor in the jurist’s determination that neither plaintiff had standing because the statistical analysis produced a very limited chance of being hit by a ball while sitting in the specific sections Payne and Smith occupied.
In determining if Payne and Smith established standing to proceed, the court considered a three-part test established by the 1992 United States Supreme Court decision in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife: “(1) injury in fact . . . which is (a) concrete and particularized . . . ; (2) causation . . . ; and (3) redressability . . . .” The Office of the Commissioner and MLB responded that the class lacked standing because “their risk of future injury is speculative and not sufficiently immediate.” Judge Gonzalez Rogers ultimately concluded that MLB’s evidence produced no “credible or immediate threat” that Payne would be hit by a foul ball or bat and she failed to show that standing was independently established due to “deprivation of her ability to enjoy the game.” As to Smith, the judge found that MLB’s data demonstrated that “her risk of injury is very small at 0.018%,” and unlikely to reoccur particularly because the Washington native does not plan to return to Dodger Stadium to attend a game as a result of her fear of a similar injury. As such, Smith failed to meet the “requisite threshold” for standing. Smith was also unsuccessful in her personal injury claim because of improper venue. Because Los Angeles is in the Central District of California and not the Northern District, Smith was directed to file her action there.
Ultimately, the case was unsuccessful in forcing Major League Baseball to retreat from its reliance on the “Baseball Rule” limiting liability based on the doctrine of assumption of risk serving as a complete bar to a plaintiff’s ability to sue a stadium owner for injuries as long as a properly maintained screened area is provided for as many fans as might reasonably request such seating. In recent years, however, the Idaho Supreme Court and appellate courts in Indiana and Georgia have declined to follow the “Baseball Rule.” Recent incidents, including the well-publicized injuries to Tonya Carpenter at Boston’s Fenway Park and Wendy Camlin at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, have increased requests from fans as well as players to increase screening at ballparks. As a response, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred issued a series of recommendations in December 2015 that reinforced the basic norm that major league stadiums provide screening that covers the area between the home plate sides of each dugout. A number of teams responded by actually increasing screening prior to the beginning of the 2016 season including in some cases areas beyond the home plate side of the dugouts. The recommendations specifically noted the need to balance fan safety with the desire of fans to catch foul and thrown balls and obtain autographs from players.
In seeking screening extending from foul pole to foul pole, the Payne litigation demanded a substantial change to the basic configuration at professional baseball stadiums requiring alterations that far exceed Commissioner Manfred’s recommendations. However, many fans sitting in rows just behind the dugouts or close to the bases remain vulnerable to line drive shots that provide minimal reaction time and frequently produce substantial injuries. The Payne litigation’s narrow discovery focus and the facts involving plaintiffs Payne and Smith provided Justice Gonzalez Rogers a direct path towards determining a lack of standing. Although a number of major league teams did increase screening for certain high exposure areas, the current situation will not prevent some fans from being injured in similar incidents that left Tonya Carpenter and Wendy Camlin with life-altering experiences.
Edmonds is Associate Dean for Library and Information Technology and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, and recognized baseball law expert.
