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Vol. 4, Iss. 8
August 26, 2015

My Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Law Suit Over Foul Ball Injuries

 

Regular readers of Coverage Opinions know that I am quite fond of judicial decisions involving professional sports. But not just any sports decisions. After all, most sports law decisions, despite their seeming promise, are deadly dull. They often involve such things as contracts, labor, licensing or intellectual property. A dry decision is still a dry decision – even if it involves a professional sports franchise or athlete.

But there is one type of sports law case that often bucks this trend – those involving fan interests. Consider cases involving fans who feel that they have been treated unfairly concerning their season tickets or the Jets fan who sued the Patriots over its surreptitious taping of the Jets practicing (“Spy Gate”) or the recent class actions brought by purchasers of the Manny Pacquiao—Floyd Mayweather fight who believe that, because Manny allegedly did not disclose a shoulder injury, the result was a boring fight, and not worthy of the high pay per view price tag. You see -- we’re all fans ourselves. So we can appreciate firsthand the issue in these cases and what the plaintiff is feeling. We can’t say that about cases involving collective bargaining issues.

One of the most popular cases in the fan interest category are those involving spectators injured by foul falls at baseball games. They are legion and date back a century. In general, the legal system has almost always denied compensation to spectators injured by foul balls. Courts have usually applied some derivation of what has become known as the “Baseball Rule”: The risk of being hit by a foul ball is well-known to spectators. As long as the stadium operator provides a reasonable number of seats protected by netting, a spectator who purchases one outside of this area assumes the risk of being injured.

Last month suit was filed in a California federal court that took a different tack: An Oakland A’s season ticket holder – not hit by a foul fall -- sued Major League Baseball, and its Commissioner, Rob Manfred, seeking to compel them to expand the area in stadiums that are within the zone of protective netting.

I was thrilled to publish an Op-Ed in the July 24th issue of The Wall Street Journal discussing the case and why the suit should fail. I hope you’ll check it out here:

http://www.coverageopinions.info/WallStreetJournalJuly2015.pdf

 

 
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